Mark Dresser Seven, Sedimental You

Last February I was pleased to review the remarkable DVD Virtual Tour: Reduced Carbon Footprint on my Gapplegate Music Blog. (See http://gapplegatemusicreview.blogspot.com/2016/02/virtual-tour-reduced-carbon-footprint.html.)  It was an ambitious gathering of three fine ensembles playing elaborate compositions and improvising around them in two or three locations at the same time via advanced internet hookups.

Bassist-composer Mark Dresser was a crucial participant. Now we have a sort of follow-up with Dresser leading a seven-tet, some of the members of which were a part of the Virtual Tour. Along with Dresser we have a significant gathering of Nicole Mitchell on soprano and alto flutes, Marty Ehrlich on clarinet and bass clarinet, David Morales Boroff on violin. Michael Dessen on trombone, Joshua White on piano and Jim Black on drums and percussion.

The album is Sedimental You (Clean Feed 385), a word play referencing the standard "Sentimental You" as well as underscoring the importance of instrumental layering in the delightfully complex modern avant jazz fare we hear on this landmark album.

Seven composition-arrangements by Dresser define the set. They are beautifully detailed, freely sprawling significances for the trajectory and memorability of the melodic-harmonic spectrum each distinctively maps out.

At the same time there is a freedom both in ensemble moments and in solo work by Mark and the others.

This is jazz composition of a very original and satisfying sort, modern original music by a remarkable ensemble of players who interpret their parts and improvise as called upon in stellar ways.

This may be the jazz composition album of the year for me, or at least one of the very few most original and ravishing to come out.

Anyone interested in what's NEW in jazz should not hesitate. Get this!

John Lee Hooker, The Modern, Chess and Veejay Singles Collection 1949-62

Anybody with a serious interest in blues classics of the second half of the 20th century knows undoubtedly of the importance of John Lee Hooker. He had his very own way both vocally and in his guitar playing. We can get a real feel for the development of his music in its essence with the recently released  4-CD box set The Modern, Chess and VeeJay Singles Collection 1949-62 (Acrobat ACQCD7103). With both "A" and "B" sides included we get a rich presentation of 101 tracks showing John Lee Hooker at his very finest.

Throughout the period singles were the principal medium to get blues out to its public. By the close of this period LPs were starting to assert themselves, but the grassroots attention was still on the single even then, pretty much. So a collection of the singles output is much a collection of his most significant work.

The set follows chronologically in order of release. We get a gradual unfolding of his art, beginning much of the time with John's electric, his stomping feet and his vocals. Although increasingly the I-IV-V progression is implied, John never sounds the changes himself. Later on other guitars, bass, piano may sound the IV and V changes overtly, and in the end drums supplement his stomps, but John's droning guitar riffing remains a key element as it did for the rest of his career.

And all that is crucial because his guitar approach was as influential as anybody's in this period, even though from a technical perspective there were many others who were more developed, surely. What John plays, though, is always right, always right for what he wants to do. Needless to say his vocals were some of the most electrifying and soulful sounds you could hear then...and now.

There are favorites, must-haves like "Boom Boom," "Boogie Chillen," "Crawlin' King Snake" and there are those more obscure, but it's ALL good. He was like the cat who always landed on his feet, no matter what the fall. Peerless.

This is essential. Absolutely.

Jeff Platz, Low Light Filter, with Dmitry Ishenko, Dalius Naujokaitis

Guitarist Jeff Platz has been doing some great things and I have covered a few on these pages. He is back with another fine one, Low Light Filter (Glitch Records 005), a trio date with Dmitry Ishenko on acoustic bass and Dalius Naujokaitis on drums.

It is a nicely moody, quiet yet intensely focused date. The trio can tumble freely or drive subtly, with the emphasis on creating open line interactions that can be bluesy or chromatic but always worth hearing. The quality of the three-in-one is high, yet the focus much of the time is Jeff's winding improvisations and Dmitry's seconding of the line counterpoints in effective artistic spontaneity.

It's an album I find myself welcoming as I listen further. It is an absorbing showcase for the three exploring their own personal paths to jazz advancement.

Nice!

Stick Men, Prog Noir

Stick Men is probably the most important avant prog unit operating today. No wonder. It has an all-star lineup of two of the foremost "stick men," that is, players of the "stick" or touch guitars and one of the very finest of prog rock drummers. Namely we have Tony Levin on stick and vocals, Markus Reuter on U8 and AU8 Touch Guitars and voice, and Pat Mastelloto on all manner of drums and percussion.

Their recent album Prog Noir (SMN1611) gives us an excellent opportunity to hear the band in full stride, with complex and startling instrumental togetherness, compositions-songs of a very high caliber, and a vocal-instrumental iconoclasm that goes past Crimson heights to a new feeling of being AHEAD.

It's a monument in the new prog developments and a solid gasser to hear.

Do not miss this!

Oh, and MoonJune Records, which is closely associated with this band and recording, has put together Fool of Music, a major 2.5 hour anthology of Markus Reuter music over the years. It's a free download. Go to www.markus-reuter-moonjune.bandcamp.com to get it. Very cool stuff!

Eraldo Bernocchi, Prakash Sontaake, Invisible Strings

There are a number of ways, of course, that musical duos can flourish. One good way is through contrast. That is how the album Invisible Strings (Rarenoise RNR 069/RNRLP069) becomes a thing set apart. Eraldo Bernocchi appears here on baritone and regular six-string electric guitars plus electronics. Prakash Sontakke complements him on electric lap steel guitars.

The contrast comes out of Prakash's special neo-Indian brilliance on the lap steel versus Eraldo's spacy solo and ensemble orchestral guitars-electronics.

There is an ambiance to this music that puts it in a cosmic zone. The guitar work in such a setting has a neo-psychedelic spin to it that has much appeal. Prakash turns in some very beautiful work here; Eraldo finds just the right things to play in response.

The music has a magic to it that grows with every listen. Its cavernous beauty may well appeal to a wide audience, yet it does so with an integrity and artistry that will also please the most exacting of ears.

This is something to put on and drift with. Let it take you beyond where you are!

Bobby Previte, Mass

One cannot help but reflect while listening to drummer-composer Bobby Previte's Mass (Rare Noise 072) how far we have come from the Electric Prunes' setting of the Mass, composed and recorded at the beginning of an incipient flourishing of rock as art in the later '60s. It was at the time a sort of cutting-edge proclamation that rock was worthy of serious attention as a musical form. Those who were not alive at the time or otherwise did not explore the art rock camp may have no idea of all this. But regardless the Bobby Previte work recorded on Rare Noise is miles beyond those early beginnings.

At the basis for this Mass is Dufay's "Missa Sancti Jacobi," an acapella choral work from the Renaissance. It is sung nicely here by The Rose Ensemble. Overtop, in between and around that is a heavy metal-avant-psychedelic score performed  by Previte and a formidable cast of modern electricians that include Jamie Saft, Marco Benevento, Reed Mathis, Stephen O'Malley, and others on electric guitars, keys, bass, etc.

Amazing to hear is the contrast of power chording and the counterpoint of the Dufay, both working against each other in myriad ways to forge something wholly other.

Previte's drumming is as advanced in the "heavy" zone as you'll hear. But the full totality of advanced psychedelics, post-Messianesque organ musings and Renaissance choir, the sheer viscerality of torqued guitars against clear and fresh choir is really rather superb in its shocking together-in-apart profundity. Perhaps without Charles Ives and his first disparately contrasting collages of musical elements we might have never come to this. But here we are.

This is incredibly beautiful metal. It is a landmark! I wonder what the Electric Prunes might think of it? I think they would approve.

Highest reccomendations for this!

Kevin Kastning, Sandor Szabo, Perspectives

A lively world of extraordinary ambiance awaits you on the duo guitar album by Kevin Kastning and Sandor Szabo, Perspectives (greydisc 3531). Kastning has been enchanting us with his multi-string guitar music (see index to this blog for reviews) and he returns for a series of exploratory duos with multi-string guitarist Sandor Szabo. Perspectives (greydisc 3531) gives us nine structured improvisations that show off well the extraordinary capabilities of the two guitarists and their instruments.

Szabo holds forth on a 16-string classical guitar and a 16-string contraguitar; Kastning makes use of his 36-string double contraguitar, his 30 string contra-alto guitar and a 15-string extended classical guitar. The euphonious results are nothing less than extraordinary.

The vast capabilities of these guitars in the hands of Kastning and Szabo are beautiful to hear. Breathtakingly full harmonics, double-stranded notes, nylon versus steel stringed sonances, a full range of tones from bass to high notes, and the amazing possibilities available to the two are out front and potently present.

And the choice of notes, advanced and complex melodically and/or harmonically, makes for a modern music of deep profundity. Likely you have never heard anything quite like this, unless on a previous album by Kastning. The combination of two multi-stringed guitars and the talents of the two are unprecedented nonetheless.

Anyone who plays or even just appreciates acoustic guitar music will find this album exceedingly fascinating, beautiful and rewarding. This is tour de force music for super-guitars, played by two super-guitarists!