Philadelphia-based guitarist Nick Millevoi is normally one third of punk/metal/jazz hybrid unit Many Arms, whose second CD was given the thumbs up here and whose latest album was issued last April on John Zorn‘s always interesting Tzadik label. In that trio format his fierceness as a player has suitable foils in bassist John Deblase and drummer Ricardo Lagomasino‘s brawny rhythm section. As a solo artist, of course, he’s only got his own sounds to rely on, but he couldn’t have had better training for it than his past associations with veritable one-man bands like Mick Barr and Weasel Walter, among a host of sideman credits.
In White Sky is his second solo effort—a free download via San Francisco label Flenser Records—and is a different beast to his texturally tamer 2011 debut Black Figure of a Bird, parts of which recall late-period SST post-jazz-rock trio Guns, Books & Tools (remember them?). Opener “Before a Constant” deals in variations on a simple fluctuating riff that veers from a hypnotic John Fahey-esque trance to a slowed-down, doom-laden conclusion, making great use of feedback as an instrument in itself. Contrasting that track’s tall-standing volume, “Slowly Dark” takes up the challenge of “How low can you go?” as Millevoi plays on the black noise his guitar makes when he pulls out its deepest droning notes, shadowing the background with happy accidents of vibrating low end, setting an expressionistic scene in which he twists and bends and scrapes the strings in a manner that sounds at once completely random and intricately composed, before steering the din into a sort of dismantled anti-riff towards the close.
“Super-Lith Part 1″ again goes for that taken-apart approach, unfurling as a series of at first seemingly unconnected string plucks, alternately open and muted, not unlike Cian Nugent‘s exploded-diagram take on the intro to Black Flag‘s “My War” from his 7-inch on VHF earlier this year. It’s very minimal music, Millevoi allowing acoustic physics to do much of the heavy lifting in terms of creating an atmosphere, so it’s difficult to tell whether he’s bluffing or knows exactly what his actions will achieve. “Super-Lith Part 2″ serves as an answer to that question, using the previous track’s explorations as a foundation for five minutes of unhinged shrill-toned screaming around a basic three-note pattern that he just about controls. It’s a shame that it comes to such an abrupt ending, as he could have gone a lot further with it.
Maybe he was saving his best stuff for the 14-minute closer, “Endless Unfolding Hallways.” It’s the most song-like structure of the set, Millevoi following a minor-chord riff pattern it sounds like he’s very much thought about rather than simply going where the mood takes him. The mood is dark, underpinned by buzzing bass string tones, but the chords are bold, bright and chiming, building a melodic, arpeggiating crescendo as the pace and tempo rise on a curve.
It’s quite beautiful, but it’s also the sweet coating on a bitter pill that dissolves about a third of the way into a brash confusion of noise and furious strumming, then sharp stabs of sound, as if he’s scraping the warped strings with a shard of glass, reflecting the dazzling sun in the heat of an wide open desert. Then a few minutes from the end, all that dizzying lens flare and oppressive heat suddenly evaporate, like cool night falling in an instant, leaving just a humming, gritty drone upon which he picks off some single ringing shots before one last hurrah of frenzied guitar attack and decay. If Nick Millevoi can produce more like this one, I’ll be a happy listener.
We’re heading into the home stretch with our countdown of the 50 Greatest Saxophonists…EVER!!! Here are #s 20-11, followed by a bonus list: Rudresh Mahanthappa picks his 5 favorite saxophonists!
20. PHAROAH SANDERS. Pharoah Sanders went from being one of the screamingest of the 1960s screamers (particularly when he was a member of John Coltrane’s final band in 1966 and 1967) to a more subtle, but still forceful, player in the early 1970s, as his large bands began to blend open-ended modal vamping with pan-African percussion and Indian drones, creating a globe-spanning spiritual clatter and roar that’s still some of the most unique and hypnotically fascinating “jazz” ever made. He got a little lost in the latter half of the decade, but never truly lost the fire, and when put into an interesting context, like his mid ’90s Bill Laswell-produced collaboration with North African Gnawa musician Maleem Mahmoud Ghania, The Trance of Seven Colors, can still blow the walls down. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Live at the East and Village of the Pharaohs, neither among his best-known Impulse! records, but each containing some of his most emotionally potent playing.
19. JOHN ZORN. Instantly recognizable, John Zorn is not only a fiercely talented alto saxophonist capable of making the horn produce just about any sound he likes, at any tempo of his choosing; he’s also a skilled composer who can pastiche and collage his way from conceptual japery to genuine beauty. Marrying Ornette Coleman to hardcore punk (and not just on the album where he did exactly that, 1988′s Spy Vs. Spy), his language of squawks, screams and ultra-fleet bebop phrases is entirely his own, unmistakable and unforgettable. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: The Zorn discography is vast and sprawling, but he’s best heard in the context of some of his long-running bands, so: Naked City’s Complete Studio Recordings; Pain Killer’s Collected Works; Masada’s Vol. 1.
18. CHARLIE ROUSE. Best known for his decade-plus partnership with Thelonious Monk, particularly during the pianist’s 1960s tenure on Columbia Records, Rouse also worked with Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Eckstine and Duke Ellington, but he made a few albums of his own as well. His big tone and fluid yet forceful lines made his playing instantly recognizable, and an ideal foil for Monk’s jagged and thumping approach to melody and rhythm; he slips phrases around the corners, ducking in and out of the band as it lurches forward, like a child running through a parade. At the same time, his voice on the horn is never tentative, and always strong, without ever tipping over into bar-walking bluster. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Takin’ Care of Business, his debut under his own name, released on Jazzland in 1960 and pairing him with trumpeter Blue Mitchell and a rhythm section of pianist Walter Bishop, bassist Earl May and drummer Art Taylor.
17. ERIC DOLPHY. One of the very first jazzmen to veer sharply away from standard forms and into the uncharted territory of free play, Dolphy may have one of the most distinctive sounds of any avant-garde sax man, and was a divisive figure almost immediately. Before a far too early death overseas, Dolphy left behind a handful of fascinating recordings under his own name and multiple brilliant collaborations with John Coltrane and Charles Mingus, using his instrument to redefine space and time in a musical sense, inject atonal and modal developments in concert music into a jazz framework, and make the saxophone into an entire army of sounds and not just a single rank-and-file soldier. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Out to Lunch is Dolphy’s finest recording, and unfortunately, his last. Its alarming leaps, squawks, dances and flows give an indication of just how amazing his music might have become had he continued in that direction.
16. MARION BROWN. This Georgia-born alto saxophonist made his recorded debut on John Coltrane’s Ascension, and worked with many other key figures of the ’60s avant-garde, including Bill Dixon and Anthony Braxton. His music delved deep into the roots of jazz and precursor forms, from blues to the rawest sort of back-country folk as well as African and Caribbean rhythms, and he could veer wildly from far-out blowing to tender ballad murmurs. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Geechee Recollections and Sweet Earth Flying, recently reissued as a single disc. Folk meets poetry meets free jazz in a pastoral dream world.
15. JOSEPH JARMAN/ROSCOE MITCHELL. While each of these two men has recorded impressively and at length as a leader, they’re best heard as part of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, the collective that bridged gaps between all eras of jazz, from New Orleans polyphony to free skronk, and funk, soul, pure unfettered improvisation and pretty much anything and everything else you could ever file under “black music.” Mitchell’s dry, intellectual rigor (occasionally leavened with a weird, almost alien sense of humor) was perfectly paired with Jarman’s Buddhist openness to any sound. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Les Stances A Sophie, a movie soundtrack that’s one of the Art Ensemble’s funkiest, rockingest, and most experimental albums, all at once.
14. COLEMAN HAWKINS. What Louis Armstrong did for the trumpet, Coleman Hawkins did for the tenor saxophone. He was there at the beginning (1924-25), setting the rules and cutting records that would influence generations after him. His harmonically complex, hard sound was basically the sound of the swing era, and even when bop took over, he became an important bandleader, hiring young players like Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis and Max Roach as sidemen in the 1940s. He’s also credited with the first unaccompanied sax solo, on “Picasso,” from 1948. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: The Essential Sides 1929-1939, a four-CD box including over 100 tracks; despite the earliness of these recordings, Hawkins’ style was already quite fully formed.
13. FRED ANDERSON. A testimony to the power of localism and perseverance, Anderson’s instantly recognizable tenor style wasn’t his sole contribution to jazz; from the 1970s to the 2000s, he ran the Velvet Lounge, a club in his native Chicago that hosted and husbanded the city’s avant-garde scene. His decades-long relationship with drummer Hamid Drake birthed some of the most swinging, bluesy free jazz albums in American history. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: 2 Days in April, a double-disc set documenting the first gigs by a group featuring Anderson, fellow saxophonist Kidd Jordan, bassist William Parker, and Drake.
12. WAYNE SHORTER. Shorter’s career, spanning seven decades, may be the most diverse in jazz outside of his former boss Miles Davis, bridging hard and post-bop into modal, progressive, pop and fusion, and he left a mark in every style. Primarily known today as a skillful and thoughtful composer, he’s also an excellent player, with sneaky, insinuating runs that keep his songs moving. The mere fact that he’s so adept at translating his own material to performance is a testament to his ability—nobody plays Wayne Shorter like Wayne Shorter. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Speak No Evil, a 1965 release on Blue Note with a devilishly good band, is a great place to see Shorter’s transition from bop to avant-garde take shape.
11. DAVID S. WARE. It could be said that David S. Ware was the tenor saxophonist of the 1990s. Though he got his start back in the loft jazz scene with the trio Apogee and a mid ’70s stint with Cecil Taylor, he didn’t truly hit his stride until forming his own quartet. His massive, leonine tone and utterly disciplined mastery of phrasing and harmonics, which arose out of the language of Sonny Rollins but journeyed far out into realms of post-Ayler, post-Sanders cosmic exploration, made him an awe-inspiring live act. His studio albums, though often extraordinarily powerful, rarely captured his full majesty. In the wake of recent health problems, he’s become a more introspective, spiritually questing improviser, though he can still blow the walls down when he feels like it. ESSENTIAL LISTENING: Live in the World, a three-CD set documenting three mid-2000s concerts with three different drummers; Live in Vilnius, a double LP capturing the quartet in full flight on its final European tour.
RUDRESH MAHANTHAPPA’S 5 FAVORITE SAXOPHONISTS
CHARLIE PARKER. The Savoy Recordings changed my life. On a bad day, Bird sounded better
than most folks do on their best days.
JOHN COLTRANE. The original Impressions album is a beautiful study in modern approaches to
improvisation. I always go back to Trane for inspiration.
BUNKY GREEN. An underground hero of the alto saxophone who conscientiously developed a new vocabulary and a new voice worthy of study by generations to come.
GARY BARTZ. Gary sings the truth every time the horn touches his lips.
STEVE COLEMAN. Quite possibly the most important alto saxophone player of the last 20+ years.
This is the sixth album by saxophonist and composer John Zorn‘s Moonchild ensemble. The group began its life as a trio—vocalist Mike Patton, bassist Trevor Dunn, and drummer Joey Baron—on the 2006 albums Moonchild: Songs Without Words (released in April) and Astronome (released in October). The debut was a blast of 11 semi-improvised(-sounding) pieces, conducted by Zorn, featuring Patton’s bleating, gabbling vocals over ultra-distorted electric bass riffs from Dunn and pounding, jazz-unto-grindcore drumming from Baron. Some pieces were crawlingly slow, others hysterically fast; the overall effect was exhausting and exhilarating in equal measure. Astronome, by contrast, was a sprawling but deeply focused set of three extended tracks (the shortest just under 13 minutes, the longest just over 17) titled as though they were soundtracking a 19th Century play dealing with mysticism and the occult. Unlike the rock/metal blast of Songs Without Words, which could be enjoyed on a raw-energy level like punk rock or grindcore, Astronome demanded concentration from the listener.
Five months later, the third album came: Six Litanies for Heliogabalus, a dedication to a mythically decadent Roman emperor that found Zorn augmenting the core trio for the first time, but not the last by any means—Patton, Dunn and Baron were joined by Jamie Saft on organ, Ikue Mori on electronics, three female vocalists (Martha Cluver, Abby Fischer, Kirsten Sollek), and the boss himself on alto saxophone. The ensemble once again blended improvisation and powerful riffing, with “Litany III” and “Litany V” allowing everyone, particularly the rhythm section, to send things into the stratosphere, while also providing a solo spotlight for Patton on “Litany IV.” The fourth album, 2008′s The Crucible, again featured Zorn as an active participant but brought only one other guest into the mix: guitarist Marc Ribot, who deconstructed Led Zeppelin riffs on “9×9.”
The fifth Moonchild album, 2010′s Ipsissimus, was the group’s most eclectic and wide-ranging. Once again, Zorn and Ribot joined the core trio, but they never appeared on the same tracks—the album repeatedly subdivided the musicians into various duos, trios, and quartets, the most surprising of these being the Ribot-Dunn-Baron grouping heard on the three tracks dubbed “Apparitions” I, II and III. Whether it was an attempt to throw the group members (whose relationship to each other, after four previous albums together, could easily have become calcified and their interactions rote and dependent on easy choices) off balance, or just reveal greater potential to the listener through recontextualization—show ‘em you’ve still got a few tricks up your sleeve—the results were impressive and the album a success.
This latest Moonchild disc, Templars in Sacred Blood, came out last month. For the first time since Astronome, Zorn doesn’t play on it; the group consists of Patton, Dunn, Baron, and organist John Medeski. It’s probably the most conventionally “rock” of the whole series—specifically, it seems to draw influence from 1970s progressive rock. The bassline and subtle groove of the third track, “Evocation of Baphomet,” is strongly reminiscent of Jethro Tull‘s “Living in the Past,” while on other pieces, Mike Patton’s chanted vocals and the band’s almost funky surges come off like tributes to, or imitations of, the legendary French art-rock ensemble Magma, and “Libera Me” (not just the melody and rhythm, but the buzzing distortion on Dunn’s bass, seemingly intended to emulate Robert Fripp‘s guitar tone) recalls King Crimson albums like Starless and Bible Black or Larks’ Tongues in Aspic. The lyrics are collections of names and phrases related to mysticism, the occult, and of course the Templars, but the historical knowledge on display doesn’t seem to run much deeper than that offered by, say, an Iron Maiden song. Still, the music is as impressive as every other Moonchild disc, despite being more straightforward than some and less “punk” than many. It might actually make the best entry point of any of the six releases to date, though honestly, every Moonchild album is a must-hear.
Alto saxophonist Darius Jones (who I profiled in Burning Ambulance #2) has performed with different personnel on each of his AUM Fidelity releases to date. His debut release, Man’ish Boy (A Raw & Beautiful Thing), featured Cooper-Moore on bass and diddley-bo, and Rakalam Bob Moses on drums; the follow-up, Big Gurl (Smell My Dream), featured bassist Adam Lane and drummer Jason Nazary. (This trio was also heard on a hidden bonus live track at the end of Man’ish Boy.) He and Nazary are also members of the quartet Little Women, alongside guitarist Andrew Smiley and tenor saxophonist Travis Laplante; their full-length debut, Throat, was released in 2010, and a follow-up may be coming soon. He can also be heard on Betweenwhile, by drummer Mike Pride‘s group From Bacteria To Boys. Most recently, Jones duetted with pianist Matthew Shipp on Cosmic Lieder, which R. Emmet Sweeney reviewed last April. In every case, his voice remains distinctive and identifiable; he is always himself, even when burrowing into a collective storm of sound, as on Throat. Like Ornette Coleman, Peter Brötzmann, or any other great stylist of the horn, he causes others to come to him, rather than disguising his fundamental nature in order to fit in. And yet, he does fit in, because he is possessed of an openness of spirit that welcomes collaboration. His bands are not support staff, but partners.
On his latest CD, Jones fronts a quartet that includes pianist Matt Mitchell, bassist Trevor Dunn and drummer Ches Smith. Dunn and Smith are players whose work I have heard in a variety of contexts, from Mike Patton‘s group Fantômas, John Zorn‘s Moonchild ensembles, and the jazz group Endangered Blood (Dunn) to multiple out-jazz ensembles led by folks like Marc Ribot, Mary Halvorson and Tim Berne…and the noise-rock trio, led by former Fudge Tunnel mainman Alex Newport, Theory of Ruin (Smith). They also played together on a 2004 CD by Dunn’s Trio Convulsant. The fact that they have chosen to work with Jones, who, while flirting with noise-rock in Little Women and some Weasel Walter-led projects, nevertheless comes quite clearly out of a post-Albert Ayler, spiritual jazz context, is immediately interesting.
Book of Mae’Bul begins with “The Enjoli Moon,” a tender ballad that allows Jones to unfurl its melody slowly and with great care. He allows the notes to flow through the horn almost as though a balloon is deflating, never hurrying to the next one but wringing all the harmonic energy out of each before proceeding. Mitchell’s piano playing follows his example, and Smith’s drumming, while energetic and occasionally even aggressive, never overpowers the piece. Dunn is a subdued presence, taking only the briefest of solos with delicate support from Mitchell.
As the album progresses through its eight tracks, the tenderness manifested in “The Enjoli Moon” fades, replaced with a muscle-flexing tension that makes Book of Mae’Bul a “difficult” listen, in that it demands that you engage with it. It will not sit in the background. Jones, Dunn and Smith—more than Mitchell, though he does it too—play with great force, even on slow pieces. They don’t go for stereotypical “free jazz” blare, of course. The saxophonist isn’t interested in that, and neither is Smith. There’s a moment toward the end of “Be Patient With Me” where he rolls across the toms in almost direct imitation of Elvin Jones backing John Coltrane in 1964, but otherwise, he seems determined—without making it into a Thing—to do the unexpected, to react in a way that a typical “jazz drummer” would not, even as the music remains firmly rooted in jazz.
I think if this music swung more, it would be easier to just relax and enjoy. But there’s a twenty-pound-boots feel to its rhythms and momentum most of the time. And then there’s the final track, “Roosevelt,” which features the entire band but in its final minutes boils down to the interaction between Jones and Smith. The saxophonist is emitting fierce murmuring squeals as the drummer scrapes his cymbals and clatters bits of the kit, and the music—in a surprising bit of studio-craft—slowly fades down to silence, as though this furrowed-brow, AMM-ish back-and-forth could go on indefinitely. (Almost a threat, that.) This track, as much as anything else, encapsulates Book of Mae’bul and the Darius Jones Quartet. They are men doing difficult work, and every note shines with the sweat of their efforts. Which may be why they want you, the listener, to put as much effort into hearing them as they have put into the sounds they make. If you’re up for the challenge, it’s an intense and rewarding album. If you’re not…I totally get that, too. There will be plenty of days where I will scan through the contents of my iPod and go right past this album, thinking, Nope, I need something more basic and elementally fulfilling. Comfort food. But there will be days when I will be damn glad this record exists. If you’re visiting this website, I suspect the same will be true of you.
Here’s a shortish (just under 10 minutes) clip of this group performing at Roulette in NYC in 2010:
