Ti Jaz - Ti Jazz en concert: Musiques Bretonne Aujourd'hui

Olivier Mell - bombards;
Richard Dilly - electric bass;
Olivier Le Gallo - drums;
Camille Ollivier - alto & soprano saxophone, bombard;
Bruno Brochet - tenor saxophone;
Didier Queron - tenor & baritone saxes;
Eric Richard - accordion;
With:
Vincent Bucher - harmonica.
Recorded in Paris on February 19,20 & 21, 1993.

*

01. Les filles de Lannion [05:28]
02. Suite de gavottes (rotavator 1) [04:40]
03. Concept [01:56]
04. Rotavator 2, le retour [06:53]
05. An daou vreur [03:48]
06. Terre battue [08:49]
07. Bamenjou [05:25]
08. Suites plin (ton simple) [03:35]
09. bal [02:10]
10. ton double [03:15]
11. Loudia [07:21]
12. Kost'er hoed [05:32]
13. Tricot [03:08]

*
"C’est le groupe mythique du jazz celtique de l’Ile de France ... 1982, date de naissance du groupe et pendant 20 ans, ils se sont produits dans de nombreux pays. Quelle notoriété ! Pendant 20 ans, ils ont fait le bonheur des passionnés de musiques celtiques adaptées à notre époque, et des danseurs dans les bals folk car c’est aussi très dansant ...
Répertoire musical : un mélange de swing, jazz, funk aux airs traditionnels ; des mélodies du Trégor ou de Spézet et le rythm’n blues ... . quelle originalité et qualité musicales !" (http://danseseniledefolk.free.fr/article.php3?id_article=116)

"While there are bands in abundance resurrecting the folk traditions of Brittany, there are only a handful that are expandiing those traditions. Ti jaz is one of them. Starting with a band of bass, drums and accordion, they have added the instruments of jazz: saxophones, and the instrument of ancient France: the bombarde, a raspy, woodwind with a bagpipe-like sound. So, too, have they melded these musical elements, the melodies and ideas of early French music with the improvisation of free jazz and the gut of rock. They pay hommage to the "ideal jazz" bands of 1940s and players like Yves Menez, who used horns, fiddle, accordion and banjo to create a new French folk music. In that same spirit, Ti Jaz sprawl across the musical landscape, one minute a dark dirge on bombarde, the next firing off a slap bass and drum riff that would settle in nicely at The Knitting Factory. The eight instrumental works on Rêves Sauvages are sometimes chaotic, often lyrical and always challenging. They achieve power without electricity, a power intrinsic in the instruments and the source material." (http://www.rootsworld.com/rw/feature/france.html)

samples:

http://www.musictrad.org/bottin/sons/tijaz_a1.ram
http://www.gimini-music.com/cdsearch/tijaz2.htm

Olivier Mell:
http://www.myspace.com/oliviermell

Bronislaw Duzy & Jorgos Skolias - Do It

Bronislaw Duży -trombone;
Jorgos Skolias -vocals, percussion;
*
01. Afryka [06:00]
02. Piec napiec [05:07]
03. Kolo [06:08]
04. Bluesdla [07:06]
05. Imena [04:55]
06. Zolo [03:34]
07. Foxy Lady [03:43]
08. Zeimbekiko [06:19]
09. Pentagon [05:52]

Recorded on November & December 1997
excerpt # No 7.
Recorded in Saloniki, Greece on February 27, 1997 & March 06, 1997
CD Sound CDSCD 110

*

Skolias / Duzy -Zeimbekiko
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlcfgwh5pSM

Skolias / Duzy - Foxy Lady
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiFocfEhT6A

*
About musicians

in English:

JORGOS SKOLIAS – vocalist, composer

His parents were Greek political refugees. He grew up in a cosmopolitan and culturally diverse young environment. He took part in events organised by the Greek minority, becoming involved not only in Greek music, but also trying rock and blues. He remembers his youth in Zgorzelec as being extremely inspiring.
In the 1970s he became involved with Wroclaw’s very active and exciting rock and blues scene, working with the bands Nurt, Grupa 1111 and Spisek Szesciu.
His own professional career began in 1982, when he joined the jazz rock formation “KRZAK”, soon attracting the interest of a number of searching, innovative musicians, from whom he received offers of live concert work and recording opportunities. He spent over a year with the band Osjan. Between 1988 and 1991 he was the vocalist with Young Power, a group of young, unorthodox artists that demonstrated an important and innovative approach to jazz.
His work with Radosław Nowakowski (the percussionist in Osjan), the bands Tie Break, Pick Up, Free Cooperation, and Tomasz Stańko, Zbigniew Namysłowski, Terje Rypdal, Nikos Touliatos and Bronisław Duży led him to experiment with new visions of music.
He has taken part in several recordings of music for theatre and film.
Jorgos Skolias is a musician seeking not only his own individual formula for the use of the human voice in music, but also inspiration, whether from blues, jazz, rock, or ethnic music, whether that of Greece, Africa or India. He studies ancient forms of vocal techniques, which has enabled him to master the technique of harmonic singing (taking three parts at once).
(http://www.wiener-krakauer.at/wk/?p=783).

BRONISLAW DUZY - trombone.

During his career he had an opportunity to participate in many jazz, blues and rock festivals such as: Jazz Jamboree, Jazz nad Odra, Jarocin, Jazz Juniors, Solo Duo Trio, Rawa Blues and other festivals in Austria, Belgium, Norway, Russia, Germany, U.S.A. and Canada.

His CD "Do it" is the result of cooperation with Bronisław Duży with whom Skolias has been working since 1993.This music is a synthesis of different kinds of music genders where inspirations of folk and a varieties of rhythms and tones play a key role. In his music one can find the mood of blues, the expression of soul and a ballad narration. They all are supported by the rhythmic pulsation of trombone."

&
in Italian:

Jorgos Skolias e Bronislaw Duzy: voce e trombone

Lo stile del complesso è dato dalla sintesi di diversi generi: ispirazione dal folklore, il clima del blues, la narrazione della ballata, l’espressività vocale del soul.

JORGOS SKOLIAS
Il cantante polacco più originale, noto per la sua tecnica di canto multivocale. Negli anni ‘80 ha lavorato col complesso Krzak, e coi gruppi Tie Break, Basspace, Free Cooperation, Green Revolution, Ossian, Young Power, Pick up. Con Radoslaw Nowakowski ha inciso il disco Zulu. Ha partecipato a tutti i festival jazz polacchi e ai festival in Belgio, Svezia, Germania, Russia, Norvegia, Grecia.

BRONISLAW DUZY
Diplomato all’Accademia di Musica di Katowice, dove attualmente insegna. Arrangiatore e compositore, dal 1987 è in testa alla classifica “Jazz Top” della rivista “Jazz Forum” (categoria del trombone). Ha collaborato coi complessi Sesja 80, Free Cooperation, Pick up, Twinkle Brothers, Irek Dudek – Blues Band and Symphonic Blues, Young Power, Priest and Big Cork. Ha preso parte ai festival jazz in Polonia e a Stoccolma, Oslo, Riga, Novosibirsk, Mosca, Budapest, Praga, Monaco, Berlino, Munster, Nancy, Graz, Vienna, Lussemburgo.

Jazz Meets Asia

1-4: Hideo Shibaki Quintet feat. Terumasa Hino & Three Koto Girls
01. Yosakoi-Bushi [04:07]
02. Yamanaka-Bushi [06:48]
03. Matsuri No Genzo [06:15]
04. Suwa [06:13]

5-6: Irene Schweizer Trio & Dewan Motihar Trio with Barney Wilen & Manfred Schoof
05. Sun Love [17:44]
06. Yaad [05:19]

7-11: Tony Scott & The Indonesian All Stars
07. Djanger Bali [06:03]
08. Gambang Sulling [07:11]
09. Ilir Ilir [04:00]
10. Burungkaka Tua [05:20]
11. Summertime [08:13]

*
Musicians:

1-4:
Hideo Shiraki - drums
Terumasa Hino - trumpet
Takeru Muraoka - tenor & soprano saxophone, flute
Yuzuru Sera - piano
Hachiro Kurita - bass
Kinuko Shirane - koto
Keiko Nosaka - koto
Sachiko Miyamoto - bass koto

Recorded November 1, 1965 in Berlin;
Original released on "Sakura Sakura" MPS Records 15.064

5-6:
Dewan Motihar - sitar, vocals
Keshav Sathe - tablas
Kusm Thakur - tambura
Irene Schweizer - piano
Uli Trepte - bass
Mani Neumeier - drums
Manfred Schoof - cornet, trumpet
Barney Wilen - soprano & tenor saxophone

Recorded October 23, 1967;
Original released on "Jazz Meets India" MPS Records 15.142

7-11:
Tony Scott - clarinet
Bubi Chen - piano, siter, ketjapi
Jack Lesmana - guitar
Marjono - tenor saxophone, flute, vocals
Yopi Chen - bass
Benny Mustafa - drums

Recorded October 27&28, 1967 at SABA Recording Studio, Villingen;
Original released on "Djanger Bali" MPS Records 15.145

Jon Jang Sextet "Two Flowers on a Stem"

Jon Jang - piano
David Murray - tenor saxophone, bass clarinet
James Newton - flute
Santi Debriano - bass, daluo (Chinese large gong)
Billy Hart - drums
Chen Jiebing - erhu

*

01. Two Flowers On A Stem [04:12]
02. Meditations On Integration [18:21]
03. Eleanor Bumpurs [05:22]
04. The Procession/Woman Shaman Of Alishan [11:19]
05. Variation On A Sorrow Song Of Mengjiang Nu [15:56]
06. Butterfly Lovers Song [07:09]

Recorded in NYC on June 08, 09 & 11, 1995
Soul Note 121253-2, 1996.

*
http://www.jonjang.com/
http://www.furious.com/perfect/asianimprov.html

**
Pianist/composer Jon Jang has long created music that combines advanced jazz with aspects of his Chinese heritage. For this superb disc of inside/outside music, Jang utilizes a sextet also featuring the remarkable flutist James Newton, David Murray on tenor and bass clarinet, bassist Santi Debriano, drummer Billy Hart, and Chen Jiebing on a haunting cello-like instrument called the erhu. Strong passionate melodies give way to straight-ahead jamming, free sections, and other themes. As with Charles Mingus (one of his influences), Jang's pieces are sometimes quite political, and his music often unfolds like an episodic suite. Performing Mingus' "Meditations on Integration," four Jang originals, and "Butterfly Lovers Song," the sextet's many colorful voices somehow blend together as one in service to the consistently powerful music. This highly recommended set deserves and rewards repeated listenings.(Review by Scott Yanow)
**

The story of the making of "Two Flowers on a Stem":
On a warm evening in April,1994. I had return to my home in San Francisco from Berkeley where I spent another long and exhausting day of rehearsal for the dramatic adaption of Maxine Hong Kingston’s book,"The Woman Warrior" which was to be premiered at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. I was in the final stage of refining the score for "The Woman Warrior." I was not content with the score because it contained too many Chinese traditional folk songs. I wanted more of my music. Like a filmmaker who temporarily selects pre-existing source music during pre-production period before the composer becomes part of the process, the idea was for me to use pre-existing music to give the director a sense of the musical feeling and then later replace the pre-existing source music with my original music. However, the director became very attached to the pre-existing music, particularly "Kang Ding Love Song" which was used during a romantic scene of two young lovers.

Beginning with the first three pitches (3-5-6) of The "Kang Ding Love Song" as a point of departure, another melody began to "blossom" in me like a new petal from the same stem and I began to compose a new melody. Somewhere in the process, I had just remembered that I left my score in a bag inside the trunk of my car which was parked three blocks away. After retrieving the score, I was half a block away from my home when I heard a voice shouting,"Give me your money!" I turned around and there were two young Chinese men with a gun facing me. I gave them all the money in my wallet. Unfortunately, they saw my gold wedding ring which was custom made in Hawaii and removed it from my finger. After telling Joyce, my wife, about the mugging and filing a police report, I finish composing the A section of "Two Flowers on a Stem," which became the final version for the play.

The dramatic adaption of "The Woman Warrior" was staged at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Huntington Theatre in Boston and the Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles duirng 1994-95. In December 1994 one month before the Los Angeles premiere, Joyce and I learned that we could not conceive a biological child. Our dream of having a son, who would have been named James after my father, was not going to happen. Reality sadly sank in. I suddenly realized that I became the last male member to carry the Jang family name. I began to raise questions to myself: "Who am I? What am I doing here?"

With "The Woman Warrior" production running in Los Angeles the next month, I took the opportunity to visit Steve and Ella Leong, who were close friends of my father. After my father died, it had been almost forty years since I remember them.. On June 30, 1956, two commerical airplane carrying 128 passengers which collided and crashed over the Grand Canyon on June 30, 1956. There were no survivors. My father, Dr. James Joseph Jang, was one of the victims. My mother was left to single-handedly raise my older brother Dana, myself and my sister Deeana who was not yet born. "Uncle" Steve told me the story about the Glendale Cemetery denying funeral services to my family for my father because he was Chinese American - even though he had been burned to ashes. Two years later, my mother suffered a nervous breakdown and had to take electroshock treatment in Belmont, California. Despite these hardships, my mother survived and courageously raised three children by herself. "Two Flowers on a Stem" is about the lily that can endure in the swamp.

During the 90s, I had been listening to Chinese folk songs, from both northern and southern regions of China. When I was creating "Two Flowers on a Stem," I composed a melody for the erhu that had characteristis very similar to Chinese folk songs, but I placed it in my own context. I wanted to compose a love song that would allow conflict to become tenderness, to express a desire for beauty and strength. When I heard Jiebing Chen’s erhu performance in the fall of 1994, it was the voice penetrating the heart of tragedy and transforming it into the embodiment of beauty. There is a strong connection in the relationship between tragedy and beauty that can be traced to the works by early composers for the erhu. Hua Yan-Jun (aka "Blind" Abing) began his early life as an orphan and lived in a life of poverty. When he began to lose his sight, he composed "Moon Reflected Over the Autumn Lake" as a way to remember the beauty of life.

"Two Flowers on a Stem" was fated for Jiebing Chen. I added a bridge which featured the somber and melancholy sound of the inside string or the lower D string. In June 1995, Jiebing and I joined James Newton, David Murray, Santi Debriano and Billy Hart to record "Two Flowers on a Stem" under the name of the Jon Jang Sextet in New York for Soul Note (121253-2), a record company based in Milano, Italy. We recorded "Two Flowers on a Stem" in one take. It was one of the greatest gifts given to me by these artists and the Executive Producer Flavio Bonandrini. Frank Tafuri, a record producer and founder of Omnitone, was also present at this historic session.

Three months later in September, my daughter was born in China.My wife and I adopted her in January 1996. Xiao Mei, the Chinese name given to her by the orphanage, means "small beauty." My wife and I also named our daughter, Mika, which means "beautiful scent" in Japanese. One of the personal meanings behind "Two Flowers on a Stem" is about adopting Chinese music in my musical language and a daughter from China in my life. This period in my life showed how tragedy can turn into beauty, "when sorrow turns to joy" -Jon Jang(http://www.jonjang.com/two_flowers/)

Jean-Marc Padovani - Jazz Angkor

*
Jean-Marc Padovani -saxophones;
Geoffroy de Masure -trombone;
Francois Thuillier -tuba;
Ramon Lopez -drums;
Alain Bruel -accordion;
L'Orchestre de Universite Royale des Beaux-Arts du Theatre National de Phnom-Penh.
Yun Khean: 2-string trebble violin;
Tuy Sovannara: 2-string bass violin;
Ing Wanna: 3-string crocidile citara;
Kao Dorivan: flute;
Soy Sareth: percussion;
Keo Sonan Kavei 21-bar trebble xylophone;
Suo Somali: flute, oboe;
Meas Sambo: 16-bar bass xylophone;

Recorded in Phnom-Penh, Cambodia from April 27 - May 04, 1997.

*
01. Solo flute [0:01:23.12]
02. La longue nuit [0:08:22.48]
03. Au bord du Toulé Sap [0:07:29.47]
04. L'écho de la foret [0:02:22.13]
05. L'eau dans la mare [0:05:44.37]
06. La danse des Lumas [0:05:01.05]
07. Samara [0:01:39.20]
08. Moi Pi Bei Boum [0:06:18.40]
09. Bay Khon Tchang Day [0:02:40.28]
10. L'image du park Khmer [0:03:47.57]
11. Hom Rong [0:05:54.05]
12. Soam Poong [0:02:27.40]

**
Saxophonist and major French Jazz composer, Jean-Marc Padovani, born at the start of the 1960s in Villeneuve-Les-Avignon and living in Nîmes, has always nourished his love of Jazz with southern feeling – incandescent lyricism, brassy tearing, melancholy, sensuality.
It was through the guitar, which he started playing when he was twelve, after 7 years studying the piano at the Conservatoire, that Jean-Marc Padovani took his first steps with southern music. For four years he devoured the scores of the greatest Brazilian composers and plunged into Flamenco. However a passion for Jazz steadily growing in him he decided to take up the saxophone. He did not however repudiate his taste for sunny music, for straight away he decided to join the group Cossi Anatz, which brings together twelve musicians and blends jazz and traditions from Africa and Occitanie.
The early 1980s saw the start of his personal experiments. In 1982 he formed a quartet with Philippe Deletrez (ts), Claude Barthélemy (gt) and Denis Fournier (dms). With this quartet he recorded a first album in 1983 with some choice guests: Henri Texier, Jean-Louis Ponthieux and Siegfried Kessler. The atmosphere was warm and joyful, the record peppered with feverish rhythms and spirited improvisations. In 1986, he recorded with Michel Godard, who had just been revealed by Marc Steckar’s Tubapack, for an intense tribute to Mediterranean music. The following year the two of them formed a quintet with Bobby Rangell (as, fl), Bruno Chevillon (b) and Jacques Mahieux (dms). For this formation Padovani wrote compositions linked to the Mediterranean universe and even went to Algeria to record One for Pablo.

Following his inspiration, as ever, he created in 1987 Tres Horas de sol, a show for “Banlieues Bleues”, which was subtitled Jazz-Flamenco and was a great success. Based on the rites of the Corrida, this show mingled texts by Picasso and Lorca, read by Enzo Cormann, playwright and director. He renewed this experience in 1989 with Le Rôdeur, based on a text by Enzo Cormann, and accompanied by a trio bringing together Gérard Marais on the guitar and Youval Micenmacher on percussion. The experience was completed by the homage that Padovani decided to render to Mingus with his album Mingus Cuernavaca (Label Bleu, 1992) where Enzo Cormann recounts the last hours of the brilliant double-bassist-composer.
From 1993 Padovani directed a Brass Band, the Minotaure Jazz Orchestra, in a creation born in September at the Arles Feria: ten brass instruments revisit the paso-doble and recover the luminous accents of Feria (annual fairs in the south of France) music. He then came back to the quartet and recorded Nocturne in 1994 on Label Bleu.
*
http://www.myspace.com/jeanmarcpadovani
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIbdLcIsAaM

Interview (in Italian):
http://www.jazzconvention.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=24:le-rotte-della-musica-intervista-a-jean-marc-padovani&catid=1:articoli&Itemid=2

Hazmat Modine "Bahamut"

Hazmat Modine:
Wade Schuman - lead vocals and harmonica
Randy Weinstein - vocals and harmonica
Joseph Daly - tuba
Pamela Fleming - trumpet
Steve Elson - saxophone
Pete Smith - guitar
Michael Gomez - guitar
Richard Huntley - drums
Huun-Huur-Tu on # 2, 8, 14
*
01. Yesterday Morning [05:08]
02. It Calls Me [03:10]
03. Bahamut [06:03]
04. Fred Of Ballaray [01:28]
05. Broke My Baby's Heart [07:20]
06. Almost Gone [03:25]
07. Steady Roll [05:34]
08. Everybody Loves You [06:16]
09. Lost Fox Train [03:39]
10. Dry Spell [04:44]
11. Ugly Rug [01:24]
12. Who Walks In When I Walk Out [04:47]
13. Grade - A Gray Day [03:36]
14. Man Trouble [11:11]
15. bonus # [00:15]
*
This long-awaited debut CD is a uniquely intercontinental sonic collage encompassing a tremendous range of instrumental, vocal, and conceptual originality--all with a lot of soul and groove. Like the mythological beast of its title track, HAZMAT Modine's BAHAMUT holds the world in it's eye. Its fourteen songs are steeped deep in American roots but merge influences as diverse as Romanian brass, Middle Eastern fable, Jamaican Calypso, and Tuvan-Mongolian ballad…

"…HAZMAT MODINE is surely one of the most remarkable musical groups that has made one of the most remarkable records I’ve ever heard… My ears turned inside out in every direction to hear all of it. What fantastic music!” Bengt Eriksson – Roots, Denmark

"Hazmat Modine is the kind of ensemble that could have come only from New York. The core group consists of harmonica virtuosos Wade Schuman and Randy Weinstein, tuba player Joseph Daly, drummer Richard Huntley, guitarist Pete Smith, and Pamela Fleming on trumpet and flugelhorn. The fifteen-track CD presents an ensemble with a Sybil complex of multiple musical personalities. "Yesterday Morning" resembles a New Orleans funeral dirge with a reggae beat. "It Calls Me" melds the Mississippi Delta with Huun-Huur-Tu's Asian-born Tuvan throat singing. The exotic array of instruments includes the Romanian cimbalon, zamponia, Hawaiian steel guitar, electric banjitar, contrabass sax, claviola, and bass marimba. In the hands of lesser musicians this stuff would sound like a mess, but these guys make it work, with dancing diplomacy that would put the U.N. to shame. If this isn't world music, I don't know what is." -- Eugene Holley, Jr. - Amazon.com

Preview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dEgWy7kbew
More reviews:
http://www.jaro.de/php/endex.php3/page/content:flypage/cd_id/269/artist_id/d4849541228aac61818d26edbf914d87

Hasidic New Wave "From The Belly Of Abraham"

*
Frank London: trumpet, flugelhorn
Greg Wall: tenor and soprano sax. clarinet
David Fiuczynski: guitar
Fima Ephron: bass
Aaron Alexander: drums

Yakar Rhythms: Alioune Faye, Ousmann Sall, Abdoulaye Diop: sabar, djembe, dun-dun.
Special Guest: Jamie Saft: organ (on Yemin Hashem)

Tracks 1,4,7,8: was recorded on April 10,11, 2001 in Brooklin
Tracks 2,3,5 was recorded on November 04, 2000 in Weehawken,New Jersey
Track No 6 was recorded February 26, 2001 in Jersey City

*

01. Waaw-Waaw [05:18]
02. Yemin Hashem [08:52]
03. Bread Of Affliction [11:26]
04. Sea of Reeds [06:57]
05. Frydginator [05:31]
06. The Sacred Line [02:34]
07. Bo-Peep [06:50]
08. Spirit of Jew-Jew [08:23]
**
Following a wave of klezmer revivalism that happened in the '80s (ushered in by Andy Statman's Klezmer Orchestra, the Klezmer Conservatory Band and Klezmorim), a number of renegade klezmer units began popping up on the alternative music horizon, including the Klezmatics, Naftule's Dream, David Krakauer's Klezmer Madness and the New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars. One of the brightest and most fiercely uncompromising alternative klezmer band to emerge in recent years is Hasidic New Wave. Formed by trumpeter Frank London and clarinetist/saxophonist Greg Wall, this renegade bunch has combined the signature scales of Jewish music with the fatback grooves of James Brown, free-jazz leanings and plenty of freak-out electric guitar work courtesy of David Fiuczynski, perhaps the most original and audaciously talented plectorist on the scene today.

After a string of solid recordings as a working quintet, drummer Aaron Alexander came up with the novel idea of grafting African drummers onto the group's uniquely Jewish sound. The result is this inspired collaboration that at once harks back to shtetls (villages) of Eastern Europe and mother Africa; a brilliant Afro-Semitic fusion best represented here by Alexander's "Bo-Peep" and London's cleverly named "Spirit of Jew-Jew."

Another standout track is "Yemin Hashem," where tenorman Wall wails with muscular authority on top of a Fela Kuti-esque groove created by bassist Fima Ephron (of Lost Tribe and Screaming Headless Torsos), drummer Alexander, guest organist Jamie Saft and a phalanx of drummers from Dakar collectively known as Yakar Rhythms (Abdoulaye Diop, Ousmane Sall and lead drummer Alioune Faye). For a change of pace there is Wall's noirish ballad "The Sacred Line," the only piece that is performed sans African drummers.


One of the most provocative tracks is "Bread of Affliction," which is underscored by a tightly woven interlocking cadence set up by Yakar Rhythms. Both Wall and London unleash with free-jazz abandon on this deeply hypnotic groove (with London showing his debt to Don Cherry) while Fiuczynski follows up with some of his patented jazz-punk stylings (heavy on the whammy bar and wah-wah). London's minor-key "Sea of Reeds" carries an early '60s Blue Note flavor in its muted trumpet and tenor sax harmony theme (somewhat reminiscent of Herbie Hancock's "Cantaloupe Island") while the battery of drummers and bassist Ephron bring an Afro-reggae sensibility into the picture. Fiuczynski manages to use his whammy bar to good Middle Eastern effect here.

The giddy "Frydginator" is an uptempo, authentic-sounding klezmer romp than might go over well at a Jewish wedding, although the blistering trading of fours between London's trumpet and Wall's tenor sax might be frowned upon by the elders, as no doubt would Fuze's Led Zeppelin-meets-Holdsworth guitar solo. Oy! No less exhilarating, though decidedly darker, is Ephron's "Waaw-Waaw," which conjures up latter-day Miles Davis through its sparse, repeating bass figure and its insistent groove underneath London's excellent muted trumpet work.

The energy this ensemble emits is extraordinary.
By Bill Milkowski (http://jazztimes.com/)