Valencia: 3, Bruce Arnold, Vicent Colonques, Avelino Saavedra

I don't know how easy the CD today will be to find. I didn't come up with much on the internet. But if you see it around, you might want to grab it. Valencia: 3 (Muse Eek 158) was an impromptu meeting of Bruce Arnold (guitar and super collider), Vicent Colonques (piano, keys) and Avelino Saavedra (drums) in Valencia, Spain, on November 2, 2008. The three had never played together before. But they created a kind of atmospheric, freely improvised, somewhat electric world during the course of the meeting that bears close listening.

It's not fusion, it's not conventional free playing, it's a spontaneous collective improvisation that hangs together in ways one does not hear often. It has some jazz-rock implications but they are not overt. Mostly it's three players listening and following a path together to some uncharted territory.

Bruce Arnold turns in some nice soloing but it's in its collective mode that things gel especially.

If you want to check out a copy you might Google Bruce Arnold and see what comes up. It's very interesting music.

TIN/BAG's "Bridges": Trumpet-Guitar Duets from Kris Tiner and Mike Baggetta

Bridges (Mabnotes 002) jumps right in and so we will too.It's a well thought-out series of duets between trumpeter Kris Tiner and electric guitarist Mike Baggetta. There is something about its mellow quality that reminds me of Miles's In A Silent Way. Not because it has rhythmic pulse or pronounced head melodies, but because there is a tonal melodality going on with Mike's pure-toned electric sound and Kris's straight- or muted-horn lyricism.

It has a slight middle-period ECM ambiance as well. The comparisons stop there, though, because TIN/BAG most definitely create their own ways around and through the notes. Half the composition credits go to Tiner, half to Baggetta and there often is a seamlessness between improvisation and composition. Mike works through some variously articulated chordal envelopes and single lines of interest while Kris applies mind-soul leverage to his note choices so that most everything stands out as refreshingly out of the ordinary. It's a duet that uses well the spaces between the notes to create a kind of creative-cosmic vacuum packing. Cliches have no place here. It's rather a place where melodic invention, gentle chordal ostinatos and sotto voce trumpet exhortations gain dynamics and then just as dramatically lapse back into the whisper of remembrance, of melody re-recalled. The set concludes with a lovingly rubato rendition of Dylan's "Just Like A Woman," and it seems like the right way to end.

This is a finely original, small-detailed set of nine miniatures. Gems if you will.

And it makes for an excellent listen. Recommended.