Mendoza Hoff Revels - Echolocation - a blast of instrumental skronk rock
Ava Mendoza: electric guitar, compositions
Devin Hoff: electric bass, compositions
James Brandon Lewis: tenor saxophone
Ches Smith: drums
'Echolocation' is the astonishing debut album from Mendoza Hoff Revels, a formidable new unit led by Ava Mendoza & Devin Hoff and featuring James Brandon Lewis & Ches Smith.
While Mendoza and Hoff have floated around each other's musical orbits for decades, and have been friends for some time, this is their first work together on record. It is an electric & holy harmonic fusion of highly estimable musical forces; wholly rendered. The original impetus of this group was Mendoza’s, based on the love she and Hoff shared for aggressive and polyglot electric avant-garde ensembles – artists like mid-80's Black Flag (w/ Roessler & Stevenson) and Ornette Coleman's Prime Time bands revolutionized the way they heard music. As stated in their liner notes, "we shared the writing of these pieces, though without the sizable stamps of both James and Ches, they would sound nothing like they do here.”
The result – 21st Century progressive rock played by punk rockers with serious improv skills and a deep jazz feel. And vitally – non-stop wicked catchy tunes, riffs & grooves.
Strong sonic references on our initial hearing at AUM Fidelity were The Stooges’ Funhouse, rendered by an entire band readily adept at rapidly swinging rhythmic & harmonic shifts (plus tenor sax on every track!) -&- minutemen, both their entire body of music & their fundamental egalitarian punk ethos. A higher combo accolade to any "rock-adjacent" band playing with electricity we at AUM cannot bestow.
Art & Design by William Mazza Studio
David S. Ware New Quartet — Théâtre Garonne, 2008 (Aum Fidelity)
Photo by John Rogers
Théâtre Garonne, 2008 by David S. Ware New Quartet
Compared to the two-decade lifespan of its predecessor, David S. Ware’s New Quartet existed for a short period of time. The tenor saxophonist first convened it to play a new book of tunes just four months after the DSWQ played its last show in March 2007, and by the end of 2008 Ware’s health had deteriorated to the point where getting a new kidney took precedence over keeping a band going. But during that short time the group established a distinct identity and showcased aspects of Ware’s music that never got much time in the preceding ensemble.
The original Quartet reveled in the massiveness of its sound. When you subtract Matthew Shipp’s piano and add Joe Morris’s electric guitar, you open up a lot of space. Morris, a guy with a finely-honed skill for making his own mark without getting in the way of his fellow musicians, was an inspired choice to cast light upon the details of line and timbre in Ware’s playing. For while his playing never lacked nuance, it had always been a lot easier to linger on its tonal bulk and emotional force with such a piledriver band behind it. William Parker’s bass playing doesn’t command as much attention here as it often did in the original quartet. That’s not because he’s playing less, but because he’s pretty much singlehandedly establishing the music’s foundation with insistent, fundamental lines. By articulating the rhythms so solidly, he makes it possible for drummer Warren Smith to fly free of the groove and ascend alongside Ware, who sounds positively airborne on the intro to “Durga,” wheeling and dipping while Smith scatters flourishes that decorate his melody.
The New Quartet only made one studio record, Shakti, which it recorded the same month as it played this concert. While there’s a lot overlap in the thematic material, the live recording feels looser and more exciting, making Théâtre Garonne, 2008 a very welcome addition to Ware’s discography.
Today I’m beginning a new series of posts on the spring chickens. If you’ve followed this blog for awhile, you know I’ve done a series of posts called Top 40 Over 40 about musical artists who have done work after the big four oh that to my ears is as good if not better than work done when they were young(er). I have a couple new posts planned for that, but this series will be for anyone who is…
William Parker, 'Painter's Winter' CD (AUM Fidelity)
Thursday, December 23, 2021, 7:03pm (full listen)
I have to say, this album is so coherently wonderful and unforced-sounding, and well-recorded, and definitely "free" while still being pretty damn pleasant to listen to, that I would readily offer this disc up to the proverbial non-believer, as a potential entry point into a musical world that is often much more daunting than this one, and also a lot less good. All three are constantly servicing the forward momentum of the music, all the while traipsing, stream of consciousness-like, down their own probing paths, and - at the risk of sounding like someone a lot less familiar with this type of music than I am - it's simply crazy to think how the pieces, with the aforementioned cohesiveness, are plucked right out of thin air. The legions of lesser combos out there would give their asses to sound this good; a predictably great outing from these three.
There’s an hour left on the first day of 2022 in my time zone. Enough time left to get started on one of my new year’s resolutions: to write shorter posts on this blog, and to write them more often. Here goes.
There are very few times these days when I feel like I’m missing out by not living in New York City. What brings the feeling up the most for me is when I hear about concerts involving the…
William Parker, 'Painter's Winter' CD (AUM Fidelity)
Tuesday, November 9, 2021, 7:23pm (full listen)
Finally got around to nabbing a copy of this disc, which I'd been eagerly anticipating, since its predecessor, another trio with WP, Daniel Carter, and Hamid Drake (that one was called 'Painter's Spring'), was one of the many highlights of the amazing Blue Series on Thirsty Ear Records, which featured amazing and thorough documentation of WP but also the likes of Matthew Shipp, David S. Ware, Roy Campbell, and Spring Heel Jack. It does not disappoint in the least, in no small part due to the fact that there is much more multi-instrumentalism on display here than on its predecessor, providing not only a wide variety of sonic zones from track to (extremely well-recorded) track, but also an clear, direct overview of these guys' deeply impressive range on a selection of disparate instruments. And, this probably doesn't need to be reiterated here, but listening to the way HD and WP navigate time and "free" playing on the drums and bass, respectively, is an utter joy and is something that should be cherished, because a pair of humans this in tune with one another is a rare thing indeed; great disc!
The paths of William Parker, Hamid Drake, and Daniel Carter have crossed often enough, and over such a span of time, that it’s a bit of a shock to realize that this is only their second album as a trio. The first, Painter’s Spring, was part of Thirsty Ear Records’ Blue Series, a program selected by Matthew Shipp in order to bring free jazz to people who might not otherwise listen. It fulfilled its gateway function with honor by delivering open-ended performances of melodies nourished by a deep blues sensibility that were propelled by a flexible but unstoppable sense of swing.
While those sensibilities likewise nurture Painters Winter (no apostrophes, thank you), which follows its predecessor by twenty-one years, the group does not precisely duplicate its vibe. The first time, Parker and Drake got down to rhythm section fundamentals. Now, they join Carter, who routinely defies the conventional wisdom that says mixing woodwinds and brass will wreck your chops. Carter once more savors the pleasures of multi-instrumentalism, waxing lyrical on alto and tenor saxophones, clarinet, flute, and trumpet. Drake plays hand drums as well as a kit, and Parker plays shakuhachi and trombonium (a compact brass instrument that was invented to give marching bands access to a trombone’s sonorities) as well as double bass. Whenever Parker picks up a wind instrument, Drake throttles back, accentuating details with cymbal washes or blazing paths of spare, winding beats that wander away from his partners’ breath exchanges, but always complement them. If you’re used to being carried away by his joyous grooves, you might find it necessary to listen a little closer this time in order to catch his endless rhythmic permutations. But maybe you’ll just focus on the laconic exchanges between contrasting winds.
With bass in hand, Parker revels in the space that the trio provides. The long developmental arcs of his ideas are matched by his tonal bulk. On the opener, “Groove 77,” Carter balances Parker’s heft with slender, economical lines played on a muted trumpet, and balancing Parker’s unstoppable drive on “A Curly Russell” with short, cork-screwing lines. His knack for contrast extends to emotional content, as well, best exemplified by the dolorous cast to his tenor on “Happiness.” While it’s possible to just kick back and enjoy Painters Winter as easily as its predecessor, these dynamic shifts yield an endless bounty of discoveries. Settle in; winter’s a time for listening.
William Parker — Mayan Space Station (AUM Fidelity)
Mayan Space Station by William Parker
The profound trio, the one worth reaudition and continued exploration, the one transcending the one-night stand or mere blowing session, exists in dialectical unity. No, “exists” doesn’t address the totality. It melds, fragments and merges again with the controlled freedom of hermeneutic immersion. This inaugural offering from William Parker’s first guitar trio, with Ava Mendoza and Gerald Cleaver, fills every bill while writing its own ticket. Histories collide, rebound and reconfigure with the requisite energy of molten spontaneity and stone-cold amoebic precision in perfect balance.
This trio is an aggregate of opposing forces, and could it be anything else with Parker at the helm of a trickster composition like “Domingo”? Imbibing Parker’s mind-stomping time-and-mode-scrambling groove might put Classical music enthusiasts in mind of those Haydn minuets that constantly skew the beat. It’s a take on the walking bass-line trope shoved way down deep into oceans of association, each tone obliterating the last, and even Mendoza and Cleaver’s timbrally disparate entrances only scatter allusion while sweetening the pot. If Parker is the Shiva of musical foundations, Cleaver brings the fire. Is there a Clave buried in the titular piece’s incendiary brick-and-mortar multipulse? How does he manage brushes and whatever else he’s got going in that transparent mix of loose hipness and rhythmic intricacy as Parker slaps and pops back? Shaker, wire and skin coalesce in ebullient camaraderie over Parker’s ostinato until Mendoza ups the ante. She is a guitarist thriving on texture. This is not to diminish her melodic and harmonic acumen, evident in everything she plays, but her greatest gift resides in the layering of timbral delicacy, sometimes in microtone, as when she decenters “Mayan Space Station”’s fourth chord, presenting worlds of possibility through a peephole. Later in the track, she fabricates canon via delay, but the second voice is distorted and veiled, mysterious, a backlit ghost among ghosts manifesting in what Cooper-Moore has called the neighborhood of history and influence, channeling Sonny Sharrock via Roger Trigaux.
Then, ineluctably, relegating the poor writer to deer-in-headlights status, come the final two pieces, points both on and defining the curve, the place of combinatorial elements that doesn’t so much warp time and space as shatter them. “Canyons of Light” begins with all in melody mode, Parker’s arco beautifully complementing the sheen of Cleaver’s cymbals, Mendoza treating distortion with virtuosic skill. All builds, coasting in and out of time and rhythm just on the edge of perception until the sudden stop and silence ushering in the appropriately titled “The Wall Tumbles Down.” A blues workout in context rips notions of chronology to shreds before the topic shifts, suddenly, radically and completely, readmitting pliant sinews and sensual curves similar to those with which “Canyons” opened. The ensuing arc, awash in clarified scronk and transparently rarified clatter, is a marvel of construction and engineering. The three are one, and the one is integrated in division in the way only music can manage. It’s difficult to say just where the power resides. It could be in Cleaver’s anchoring of the slow build, or maybe in the high-voltage gongs and myriad glissandi at 11:00, or is it actually in those final and darkly delicate no-time intervals hanging in space and ushering the sounds away? The discs second half puts its first’s felicities in perspective and shows what this trio really is and might become. They should record more; the sooner the better!
