Theree new releases reviewed by Ray Commiskey.
JOHN SURMAN/HOWARD MOODY
Rain On The Window
ECM
****
Saxophone and church organ are an unlikely coupling. But this is different. Surman draws such wonderful sonorities from his majestic baritone and soprano saxophones, and bass clarinet, that he dignifies everything he does here.
And in Howard Moody he has an amazingly empathetic organist who is also a gifted improviser - their joyful Dancing In The Loftis a particularly persuasive free improvisation - but their communal inspiration is evident everwhere in this beautiful album.
Surman, who wrote most of these brief pieces, is the main voice, pouring his great generosity of spirit and talent into memorable performances of Stained Glass, Stone Ground, A Spring Wedding, On The Go, the benediction of Pax Vobiscumand the traditional O Waly Walyand I'm Troubled In Mind. The results achieved, however, are inconceivable without Moody's essential contribution.
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RAY COMISKEY
SIMON JERMYN
Simon Jermyn's Trot a Mouse
Fresh Sound
New Talent
***
For this 2007 New York recording, bassist/guitarist Simon Jermyn enlisted regular cohorts Seán Carpio (drums) and Joachim Badenhorst (bass clarinet/tenor), and assigned the main front line voices to Chris Speed (tenor/ clarinet) and Loren Stillman (alto/ clarinet).
Although the music's dark tones could do with more light and shade, he achieves some interesting textures with the quintet, whose chemistry is impressive; its handling of rubato, too, creatively sustains tension, notably on Otaburand the spontaneously devised Middle Place.
Strongly featured, Stillman and Speed overshadow Badenhorst. But Jermyn and Carpio form an ideal rhythm section for this music and Jermyn, as leader and composer, has a fine touch in using the complementary gifts of his two Americans, both as soloists and in the ensembles, to furnish the textures explored.
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RAY COMISKEY
PAUL BLEY/DAVE PIKE
Solemn Meditation
Fresh Sound
***
This reissue brings together, for the first time on CD, two late 1950s sessions by Bley and Pike. The earlier date featured Pike's Jazz Couriers, a quartet of relatively unknown players, while a year on, Pike had joined Bley's working trio with a young Charlie Haden on bass and drummer Lennie McBrowne.
Though both were uncompromising jazz units in the bop mould of the time, Bley's group is the main focus of interest. Viewed with the benefit of hindsight, there were piquant hints in Bley's approach to the piano, particularly in his solos on the quasi-exoticism of Persian Marketand the blues of Birk's Works, that he was heading in more open directions.
Pike, a passionately swinging vibes player influenced by Milt Jackson, offered an energising contrast to the somewhat more cerebral Bley, and cast his own quartet in his more extrovert image.
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RAY COMISKEY
