Euro jazz and more at Kerrytown

By John Uhl

Daily Music Editor

From recent appearances by Old World improvisation giants Evan Parker and Peter Brontzmann to Uri Caine's upcoming head-scratching interpretation of the life and music of German composer Gustav Mahler, the influence of the European avant-garde has been especially evident at Kerrytown Concert House lately.

On April 13, reed players Evan Parker and Ned Rothenberg gave a phenomenal duet performance in which they displayed perhaps the freshest approach to improvisation since the progress of jazz's free thinkers of the 1960's. Rothenberg's alto saxophone and bass clarinet work was a treat, but Parker is the true innovator. For one piece, the British saxophonist performed a soprano solo in which he used circular breathing to execute continuous runs of circling scales that he would, with the passing of each lap, alter slightly so as to create a pattern that changed subtly in three or four places at once. He played without pause for probably fifteen minutes jumping between microtones and overtones and real tones so that it sounded as if he was playing the saxophone in some weird register that has never been played before and every few moments there would be a loud gush of air as he exhaled or inhaled through his nose lending to the notion that he was conjuring forth this living breathing entity that steadily developed through his manipulating slight changes in the flailing of his fingers which snapped open and shut too rapidly for the eye to detect this puppeteermanship leaving the audience only half conscious of any evolution. His playing was so unique that it could hardly even be called jazz, and all this listener could do afterward was sigh with the resignation that he might not hear anything quite so impressive ever again.

The German saxophonist Peter Brontzmann also experimented with the shaping of sound into new forms, although his method owes a greater debt to past experimenters like Albert Ayler and Pharoah Sanders. Brontzmann's medium is the screech: forging form and melody from multiphonic-induced howls, growls and shrieks. He did so on April 21 with the aid of trumpeter Roy Cambell and a superb rhythm section of bassist William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake. Drake pounded his set all night with the velocity of various heavy objects falling from a great height, while Parker's bass solos were built upon a foundation of shifting repetitions that gradually developed in complexity. And for the evening's send-up encore, Brontzmann, Cambell and Parker tamed the snaking processional beat of Drake's hand drums with an odd assortment of whistles and reeds.

If Parker and Brontzmann can be considered sonic experimenters for carving music out of their individual technical investigations of the saxophone, Uri Caine's "Mahler Revisited" project is notable for its attempt to achieve new ground in sound by incorporating every sort of musical style. On Caine's recording "Urlicht/Primal Light," Arto Lindsay sings a tune from Gustav Mahler's "Songs of the Death of Children" as a crooning Brazilian samba. But he hums the melody rather than pronouncing the words, and he does so vaguely out of tune. The piece is an obvious farce and recalls the burlesque songs on old recordings by the Muppets (yes, like Kermit). And this has to do with Mahler? Lots of things do, apparently, as Caine directs an ensemble tribute to the composer's life that, in its attempt to evoke his inspirations, can at different moments honestly be called jazz, free jazz, folk, rock and roll, electronica, klezmer and classical music. On May 14, Caine, who plays piano, will be joined by noted musicians from the New York area Don Byron on clarinet, Jim Black (a personal favorite) on drums, trumpeter Ralph Alessi and violinist Joyce Hammann, and from the Detroit area bassist Tim Flood and DJ Recloose on turntables.

Courtesy of Kerrytown Concert House

Don Byron will play clarinet with Uri Caine on May 14th at Kerrytown Concert House.