Methods matter as much as outcomes in Ken Vandermark’s music. That means that when the Chicago-based improviser, composer, organizer and reeds player puts together a band, the way its members come to terms with the way the sounds go together is as much of a creative expression as the way they sound. Edition Redux is Vandermark’s current touring ensemble, the main place where he works out partially pre-planned forms over the long haul.
It is the descendent of a larger band that played just once in late 2022. While its performance showed promise, its membership was not available to devote the time necessary to develop the band’s fluency with Vandermark’s concept. So, he cut it down, switching out the established veterans (no hard feelings, they’ve continued to work with him elsewhere) and reducing the line-up to a quartet comprising three younger players — keyboardist Erez Dessel, drummer Lily Glick Finnegan and tuba/electronics player Beth MacDonald. They’ve toured with Vandermark both in Europe and the USA, and Broadcast Transformer is their second album.
The material that Vandermark has written for Edition Redux references a breadth of artistic impulses; the album’s list of dedicatees includes Scratch Acid, Nan Goldin and Herbie Nichols, among many others. Vandermark uses these lists to acknowledge people whose way of working has in some way inspired pause and reconsideration of how he works. These influences rarely manifest as an emulation of someone else’s sound, but in more of a problem-solving fashion. How long does a segment last? How does it connect to the next one? How disruptive or connective are the transitions? If this is starting to sound as much like film as music, it’s not accidental. Not only did Vandermark study film in college, he’s periodically commented upon it (among other non-musical artforms) in his social media posts.
Sequencing is a profound concern in Edition Redux’s music, and in this regard, Broadcast Transformer feels like a realization of the promise of its first CD, Better A Rook Than A Pawn. The album’s 14 pieces are combined in a modular fashion which leaves open the possibility that they can be shuffled and reordered. The quartet has been working this way for a while, and it shows in a couple ways. The jumps are more abrupt and the segues are more liquid, reflecting a mastery of the music’s transitions. And the places where segments abut also seem to make use of the musicians’ multiple strengths, which suggests that Vandermark’s been writing with them in mind. Dessel can switch instantaneously from funky comping with a clavinet-voiced synth to sharp-edged electronic slabs or a surging piano avalanche; he’s the sharp edge of the editor’s razor. Finnegan’s playing clearly articulates not only the shifting time feels, but the compositions’ contours throughout the contrasting sections. MacDonald’s tuba is a distinguishing sound print that can be a bulky, befogging presence or a strategically reinforcing agent of rhythm. Vandermark sounds like just himself, by turns burly, earthy, and emphatic, but also energized; one supposes that it’s a gas to be able to know that he can trust this posse of younger players to realize his ideas and bring their own strong selves.
