Marc Ducret, Tower-Bridge

Jazz guitarist-avant composer Marc Ducret has never been an artist to be taken for granted. His music and ensembles are filled with twists and turns, the unexpected and the worthy. His guitar work is very electric at times and always personal. Given all that, one never knows what is next. But I must admit the scope and intensity of his work with a 12-member band on Tower-Bridge (Ayler 139-140 2-CD) surprised me.

It is surely his most ambitious work to date. The entire double CD set was recorded live with a series of six Ducret compositions that deftly combine freedom and preset compositional form, structure and spontaneous heat.

The band is a well-chosen one. They play the music with in-the-moment ingenuity and drive. In the process they respond well to solo and collective improv opportunities. There are two drummers (Bruun and Rainey) and a percussionist (Lemetre), Antonin Rayon on piano, three trombones (Fourneyron, Mahler, Persigan), Tim Berne on alto sax, Fred Gastard on bass sax, Kasper Tranberg on trumpet, Dominique Pifarely on violin and of course Marc on electric guitar. Very good, excellent players, all. Combined they make for a stunning sonance.

The compositions have linear and cyclical aspects, make full use of the sonic spectrum of the instruments, have complex lines at times and generally make full use of forward time versus suspended time, of open freedom collectively and rock drive.

Beyond this, it comes across as ultra-convincing large ensemble avant jazz for today. There is a good amount of Marc Ducret's special guitar work, but this predominately comes across as a group effort, a triumph of large ensemble modernism.

It is not to be missed, if you are serious about keeping up with what's happening today. This is.

9 Volt, Open Circuit, Parker/Maoz/Halevy & Berne

In today's shifting constellations of associations, groups, projects and albums in improvisational music, it's sometimes hard to keep track of who is with who. But when something is exceptional you forget all about the befores and afters and get into the moment.

That's what's happening to me as I listen to 9 Volt and their Open Circuit (OutNow 010) album. Rick Parker, his trombone and electronic enhancement, and Eyal Maoz, guitarist who does not eschew effects, form the core of the band, joined by Yonadav Halevy on drums and the everybody-knows-him Tim Berne on alto.

Parker and Maoz share the writing duties here and there is one collective composition-improvisation. The music is compositionally-conceptually strong to start with. It's an avant electric storm of well-conceived sound. Both Parker and Maoz make outstanding use of their electronic bag to create thoughtful storms and baroque-like walls of sound. Halevy drums with the perfect feel, gutsy and blown out or soundcoloratura as needed. Tim Berne sounds wonderful as always.

Eyal Maoz has blown me away for some time as a guitarist that has direction. Parker is right there too. Put them together here with the wonderful Maestro Berne and the suprising, inventive Maestro Halevy and you've got a tough-aced album. It's way out there in the very best electric fashion!

Bassist Hugo Carvalhais Crafts Some Extraordinary Ensemble Jazz

Portuguese bassist Hugo Carvalhais has shown on the new Nebulosa CD (Clean Feed 201) that there is a way to have some really interesting free-yet-structured music going that incorporates electronics as it would another horn or keyboard--that is, they become an integral part of the ensemble.

On this recording date it's a very intelligent mix of Hugo on bass and electronics, Gabriel Pinto on piano and synthesizer, Mario Costa on drums, and, for most of the cuts, the always-coherent Tim Berne on the alto.

Mr. Carvalhais plays a meaty and well-conceived style of contrabass with great attention to sound and use of space; Gabriel Pinto has a harmonic-melodic richness to his playing that adds much to the group; Mario Costa drives and tumbles from the drum chair in ways that suggest adeptly various velocities and densities in the freetime zone; Tim Berne is magnificent as you might expect; the electronics provide quasi-orchestral sound colors and timbres that really add to the music. And Mr. Pinto takes a few nice synthesizer-as-horn solos that bring out another dimension to the group.

This could easily be passed over in the scuffle for attention that characterizes the new release media blitz. It most assuredly should not. Because there is some terrific music here--compositionally, improvisationally and ensemble-wise.