The Safety Net

Comprised of vocalist Theo Bleckmann, percussionist John Hollenbeck, and pianist Gary Versace, Refuge Trio was originally formed as a vehicle to perform at the 2002 Wall-to-Wall Joni Mitchell concert in NYC.  Their named drawn from the Mitchell tune “Refuge of the Road,” the trio continued to collaborate after the festival, and became something much more than the original inspiration.  The 2008 recording Refuge Trio remains a compelling session, an expression of a singular sound quite unlike anything else on the scene.

The music is typified by a minimalism that sometimes manifests as a comforting ambient drone, but sometimes kicks up some stones, a few at a time, just enough to scatter ripples across the surface of the serenity.

Your album personnel: Gary Versace (piano, keyboards, accordion), John Hollenbeck (percussion, vibes, crotales), and Theo Bleckmann (vocals, electronic effects).

No better example of this album in its best light than the dreamy “To What Shall I Compare This Life.”  The song has an ethereal melody that floats on the softest of percussion and harmony.  Versace provides a comforting hum on accordion, which is balanced with the slight murmurs of Hollenbeck on vibes.  Meanwhile, Bleckmann’s phrasing repetitions possess that peculiar and epically vague wisdom of the very best lullabies.

“Pinwheel” switches things up only slightly, with a skittering cadence that develops into harmonic glide, as voices overlap like ocean tides before slipping back into a groove to see the song out.

“Rural Bliss” is a quietly ambling piece, with bright keyboard notes carrying the tune, followed by the accordion interlude of “Edges.”

“Bright Moon” displays the trio’s versatility, as the song begins as gentle ballad, shifts into something ominous and free, then ends on an upbeat note with some chipper work on keys, electronics, and drums, accompanied by Bleckmann’s wordless harmonics.

The trio, then, in successive tracks, performs renditions of Ornette Coleman and Thelonious Monk compositions.  You wouldn’t know it if I hadn’t written it here first.

The first of the pair of covers is a rendition of Coleman’s “Peace” (from The Shape of Jazz to Come).  The trio takes Coleman’s rather straight-forward, but loose blues tune and channel it as ambient minimalism.  Softly phrased notes on keyboards and accordion, angelic vocal harmonies, and restrained drum and cymbal work, like the gurgling of a softly flowing stream, all combine to produce a beautiful tune that only hints at the original.

They take a similar approach of hide-and-seek with the Monk tune “Misterioso,” which is presented as a disassembled bundle of kinetic activity.  Piano notes go sprawling in all directions and with no pattern to its flow.  Meanwhile, the impatient dings of percussion are the polar opposite in their predictability and direction.  Bleckmann cuts a middle ground between the two, with guttural sounds that seem aimed at both his trio mates.  It isn’t until the song’s conclusion that, when Bleckmann voices the song’s melody, that Monk’s original vision pokes its head out.

“Child’s Play” has a folk music disposition, with that particular mix of whimsical expressionism and salt-of-the-earth soulfulness.  Versace’s work on accordion is especially effective in seeing this through.  Meanwhile, Hollenbeck’s percussion work on “Yang Peiyi” is a mesmerizing affair, bringing the album from earth to water.

The catchy melody of “Hymn” is the echo of pop songs never sung, whereas “Happiness” is shaped in ways that pop songs never dare, yet is no less pretty than its predecessor.

The album begins with “Refuge of the Roads,” the sole Joni Mitchell cover on the album.  It is Bleckmann singing the lyrics unaccompanied, and, most appropriately, is the most straight-forward album track.

The album ends, on the other hand, with a rendition of the very fusion-y Alan Holdsworth composition “All Our Yesterdays” (which, also, has a big Star Trek tie-in, which really isn’t worth getting into right now).  The thing of it is, hiding behind all of that awful over-processed syrupy fusion of the 80s were some solid melodies, often quite pretty if you just hummed them to yourself.  Refuge Trio culls the melody from the Holdsworth original, adding some tasteful harmonic development and organic rhythms, and end their album with this little sonic diamond.. a last bit of evidence to the singularity of their approach to music, both their own compositions and that of others.

Released in 2008 on Winter & Winter.

Available at:  eMusic | Amazon CD | Amazon MP3

*****

The Safety Net, a Bird is the Worm series that highlights outstanding older albums that may have flown under the radar when first released.

By seeking to inhabit a space between the spontaneity of improvisation and the patience of harmonic expression, saxophonist Aram Shelton wanted not only to voice this sound, but also to give it a name…  Flockterkit, which Shelton defines as “a joyful and melodic music that starts with a focus on slowly changing chords with attention on harmony and orchestration.”

On the album to which he gives this name, he is admirably successful.

Flockterkit has ample portions of chamber music tucked in snug with music not unlike the electro-ambient blizzards of fellow Chicago-to-Oakland musicians Colorlist, and to a lesser extent, the Finnish outfit Oddarrang.

But where Shelton veers away from the pack rests in his background with the Chicago jazz scene, most notably his collaborations with artists who entrench themselves in the free improv scene.  Previous Shelton albums like Fast Citizens: Two Cities, Arrive, and Something For Everybody display Shelton’s comfort with music possessing sharp angles, hard edges, and a sudden left hook, collaborating with musicians like Tim Daisy, Frank Rosaly, Fred Lonberg-Holm, and Keefe Jackson, and Jason Adasiewicz.

But Flockterkit is more than an avant-garde musician suddenly deciding to make something pretty.  Shelton pieces together an ensemble that is more likely to sound like Something Different.

Your album personnel:  Aram Shelton (alto sax), Andy Strain (trombone), Caroline Penwarden (pump organ, harmonium), Kurt Kotheimer (bass), Anantha Krishnan (tablas, percussion), and Jordan Glenn (drums).

The intriguing mix of instruments alone doesn’t distinguish this recording, but the ensemble’s willingness to mix it up just as often as to stand back and beam an austere beauty, on the other hand, does set this album out from the crowd.  The multiple ways in which the ensemble expresses a state of serenity, bolstered by their alternating speeds and trajectories of fervent motion… it produces music that is simultaneously comforting and unpredictable.  That kind of incongruity makes for an enjoyable experience.

The albums opens with the slow exhalations of harmony on “We Begin.”  The harmonies continues on following track “Forward Flock,” but this breaks into a martial cadence.  Shelton and Strain call and respond with punchy statements on alto sax and trombone, while Penwarden lays down a drone in the background, bridging the gap with sudden modulations to mirror the wind instruments’ demeanor… providing both contrast and comparison with each shift.  The song ends with a gradual fade back to a greater state of calm.

“A Thought to the Past” begins with an ambient sigh, but then develops into murmurs within a bed of silence.  Trombone and sax don’t sound to be conversing, but talking separately in the same room on the same subject.  Rich harmonies envelop the song, unbroken by the rattle of percussion and drums.  Murmurs become a hum that grows into lullaby sweetness, drifting away, filling every bit of silence with harmonic warmth.

“Reconstructed” begins with the first real bout of dissonance.  Glenn is a hyperactive chatterbox on drums.  Trombone and alto sax open with a caustic statement or two, then coalesce into a united declaration of harmony.  It then develops into a juggling act of competing lines, notes tossed about in a cycle of melodic violence.  The end comes with a return to unity, still in a state of rhythmic upheaval, but all working the same harmonic fields.

“Passing Darkly” is an extended drone, illuminated by fuzzy harmonic sighs and yawns, and melodic refraction, as if channeled through warped glass… taking odd shapes, enhancing an odd beauty, yet presented with the mesmerizing simplicity of a ray of sunlight.

“Lock Step / The Only One” is a song cut in two.  Separated by a nifty Kotheimer bass solo, the piece begins with an upbeat tone, and ends with a solemn drone.  The first half has lush harmonic washes atop rhythms that urgently circle the perimeter.  Glenn and Krishnan maintain a nifty chatter on drums and tablas, benefited by Kotheimer’s prodding cadence on bass.  Later, Shelton and Strain develop a melody that cuts clean through Penwarden’s pump organ.  The latter half of the tune sees the melody slowly unraveling, becoming increasingly indistinct, as the harmonic aspect of the song returns to its ascendancy.

The album ends with “Finished.”  A bit of an alternate view of album-opener “We Begin,” with the ambient sigh exchanged for a boisterous attitude, blaring out notes atop turbulent rhythms… a shout to the sky energy.

Just a real intriguing album, one that does something a little different, and yet is supremely listenable.  At times, it forces me to engage with it, while other times, I can just sit back and drift off into daydreams.  I like that.

Released in 2008 on Single Speed Music.

Jazz from the Oakland, California scene.

Available at:  Bandcamp Digital | Buy the CD direct from the artist

*****

The Safety Net, a Bird is the Worm series that highlights outstanding older albums that may have flown under the radar when first released.

The Safety Net, a Bird is the Worm series which highlights outstanding older albums that may have flown under the radar when first released.

*****

Seattle trumpet man Cuong Vu is probably best known for two fine qualities… his languorous trumpet blasts that rise like a phoenix out of the fire of dissonance, and his creation of dissonance utilizing a signature mix of distortion and electronics.  The way these qualities manifest through sound imbue tunes with an ethereal serenity and a chaotic buzz, both separate and as one.  Vu sounds like no one else on the scene.  It’s Mostly Residual is one of his earlier releases.

Your album personnel: Cuong Vu (trumpet), Ted Poor (drums), Stomu Takeishi (bass), and Bill Frisell (guitar).

William Gibson’s masterpiece cyberpunk novel Neuromancer opens with the classic line, “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”  The fictional town this port lies in, Chiba City, is a futuristic mix of old architecture and new technology, of a place where ancient motivations and visionary possibilities meet to create a new reality.  The opening track to Vu’s It’s Mostly Residual lingers at that fictional port.  The air is heavy with the scent of the sea.  Seagulls born of microcircuitry soar overhead as Japanese wasen trawl the waters for discarded computer parts.  Vu’s soaring trumpet is the defacto seagulls, Frisell’s fuzzy guitar effects the scent of the sea, Takeishi’s bass the boats and computers bobbing against the choppy waves of Poor’s drums.  It’s an hypnotic song, even when it raises the heat to a level capable of breaking the hold of any spell cast over the listener.

The song’s shifting moods and cadence sets the tone for the rest of the album.

“Expressions of a Neurotic Impulse” starts at a ferocious tempo and refuses to relinquish it.  Poor sets the pace on drums; Nobody has trouble keeping up.  This is followed by “Patchwork,” which begins with a gentle sway, and has Vu and Frisell trading casual notes while Poor chatters anxiously just beside them.  Takeishi’s bass finds a middle ground between those two extremes.  But the pull of Poor’s frenetic orbit becomes too much for the quartet to resist, and the tune journeys off in a direction much different than from whence it began, returning to that gentle opening sound only at the very end.

It doesn’t remain there long.  “Brittle, Like Twigs” returns to a state of hyperactivity.  Vu fires off a series of trumpet lines that sometimes dematerialize into electronic frisson.  Frisell matches Vu’s heady pace, but moves in directions of a vertical nature, often crossing Vu’s horizontal path.  Poor takes the low road, Takeishi one in the upper registers.

“Chitter Chatter” returns to a pattern of distracted serenity blossoming into ambulatory combustion.  Poor’s drums mumble distractedly while Frisell lets loose a series of acerbic statements.  Vu puts a positive spin on the state of things with long slow uplifting notes.  Takeishi is in a poetic mood, but sticks to the background mostly.  The tune gradually builds into a chaotic monolith, both tempo and volume rising up to greater and greater heights… and, then, from that chaos, the quartet suddenly coalesces into a singular moving force, adopting a demeanor of something resembling a modern straight-ahead post-bop tune.  It’s an amazing transformation, especially in light of the fact that the quartet had already pulled off one costume change previously on this tune.

The album ends with “Blur.”  It is something of a return to the seaside languor of the opening track, though, in this instance, the scene never begins to storm.  It’s a simmering lullaby of a song, and a beautiful end to the album.

Released originally in May 2005, and currently offered on the Table & Chairs Music label.

Jazz from the Seattle scene.

Available as digital download (any format) on Vu’s Bandcamp page.

Available at eMusic (non-U.S. regions only).  Available at Amazon: CD

*****

And just in case you haven’t read it yet, go buy William Gibson‘s fantastic novel Neuromancer…

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