Bassist Ken Filiano and Quantum Entaglements: Dreams From A Clown Car

Ken Filiano is one of those bassists who have established bonafide credentials in the advanced jazz network as one of the leading instrumentalists of his generation. If you know his playing you know it is dead centered on communicating all facets of the complete contrabass experience.

Listen to his Dreams From A Clown Car (Clean Feed 207) and you'll hear all of that. Bowing or pizzicato he tears forth into an expressive zone and stays right there throughout.

He knows what cats to get on his team too. The one-two punch of Michael Attias and Tony Malaby on reeds, formidable both singly and as a team, virtually guarantees that a high level of musical thought and deed will be reached early on and wont disappear through the course of the entire disk. Michael T. A. Thompson brings in the right combination of power and finesse to this thoughtfully free session. He can create hard-edged washes and rumbles of percussive density, he can lay down a swinging pulse that has variation and drive, and he can sensitively complement the quieter moments too, all in ways that testify to his big ears.

Then there's Ken Filano the crafter of good free playing frameworks, Ken the jazz composer. That's the third piece of what makes the disk at hand stand out. He writes motifs that bring out the potential and considerably realized kinetic energy of the players involved. There are the long-lined pieces like "Baiting Patience" that roll through like a long freight train, continually picking up collective momentum. There are the angular stabbing jabs of melodic distinction too, pieces that set up open-ended blowing possibilities.

In short Dreams From A Clown Car gives you highly evolved, direct yet intricate collective creativity and dynamics. It's one of the finest free dates I've heard so far this year. The right cats, the right material, the right time. A beautiful moment in the new decade and a testament to the continued vitality of the new jazz. That's what we have here. If you are serious about where we are right now this should be on your short list of music to nab. Ken Filano triumphs. Attias, Malaby and Thompson outdo their considerable musical selves. The present is made salient. Jump on this one, no kidding.

Bassist-Composer Jamie Ousley's "Back Home"

Bass players used to be a more or less unsung lot. Yes, Paul Chambers, Charlie Mingus and Oscar Pettiford (OK, yeah, also Red Mitchell and Curtis Counce) led groups and made great records, but there didn't seem to be many of them that could sustain or maintain prolonged attention. All that changed a while ago and these days you find quite a few good players fronting bands.

One of them making a bid for the limelight is one Jamie Ousley, who has a beautiful tone, a matter-of-fact melodic solo style that has something in common with the great Charlie Haden in it's deliberation.

And he has a new, second album that will be hitting the stores this summer, Back Home (TIE 1076). For that effort he relies on the basic piano trio of himself, pianist Phillip Strange on piano, and Larry Marshall on drums. This is a most pleasing, melifluent nucleus that gets some heavy company: Ira Sullivan, on fluegelhorn, soprano, and alto flute, sounding as good as ever, Ed Calle on soprano, three different vocalists on three songs, and a number of others. The emphasis is on Ousley's compositional aplomb. He writes some very nice tunes that don't fade into a generic woodwork. They stand out as lyricism with grit, not sentimental but always tuneful. They range from Latin-tinged episodes like "Pasaje Tennessee," the balladic memorability of the title cut, and a range of other feels and formats, always effective and melodically distinct. Oh, and there are a few unusually treated covers, like the flamenco steeped "My Favorite Things," or a calypso version of one of Chopin's well-known Nocturnes.

Ousley comes up with a knockout. You might be finding yourself flat on your back on the canvas while someone counts, or no, that's the drums. But you'll just be happy anyway. Happy that you're hearing some very fetching music. Sorry that that will have to wait until its August 1st release date. It's worth a few days. It's good!