a r t i s t : Vandermark-Nagl-Thomas-Reisinger
t i t l e : C.O.D.E-Play the Music of Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy d a t e : 2009
l a b e l : cracked anegg
g e n r e : Jazz
r l s. d a t e : Sep/2009
t r a c k s : 08
b i t r a t e : VBRkbps
s i z e : 74,6 MB
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What a joy! Austrians Max Nagl, alto, and Wolfgang Reisinger,
drums, are joined by Australian Clayton Thomas on bass and the
ubiquitous Ken Vandermark on sax and clarinet. Nagl has this
wonderful knack of using traditional material and turning it
into fresh modern music, or vice versa, to improvise freely
and without restrictions in various styles and modes. This
album is no different, and they take on free jazz founders
Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy, two completely different
musicians and composers, but who both played a major role in
turning jazz into a real art. Ornette was a visionary, with no
great skills on the sax (or any instrument for that), but
someone who turned music inside out, and despite the scorn he
received in the early sixties, it is amazing to see how many
of his compositions survive today without sounding dated.
Dolphy was a stylist, a wonderful technician, who kept pushing
the boundaries of jazz and improvisation from the inside out.
Five tracks were penned by Dolphy (Miss Ann; GW; Something
Sweet, Something Tender; The Madrig Speaks, The Panther Walks;
Hat And Beard) and four by Ornette Coleman (Dee Dee; The
Sphinx; Free Jazz; Researching Has No Limits). This last track
by Coleman is unknown to me and only seems to appear on a
Joachim Kⁿhn album. If anyone has more info on this, please
let me know.
The music on this album varies between real boppy tunes,
highly rhythmic and clearly structured around the core themes
on the one hand, and free explorations on the other. On the
first track the two saxes twirl around each other, now in
unison, then in counterpoint, then improvising next to each
other but with great sense of timing and great listening
skills. "Dee Dee" starts as free as it gets : drums and sax
(Vandermark), but then halfway the joyful Coleman theme
emerges, again in full unison, as a relay for Nagl to
improvise over the bass in a more boppish mode. With "Free
Jazz" the whole thing turns more experimental than Coleman
ever was on this tune, with lots of extended techniques,
Thomas on arco and Vandermark on bass clarinet, and it is only
after two thirds of the track that Nagl starts playing the
tune, as a sign for the band to join. After that piece, even
the Dolphy tunes get their abstract versions, with lots of
free improv, yet with great reverence for the composition and
the composer. "The Madrig ..." brings us back to the bop
tradition. The highlight of the album is "Something Sweet ..."
which is played relatively outside, deeply emotional, with the
bass playing a key role, and now it is halfway that the
boppish harmolodic concepts of Coleman's "The Sphinx" is
played, a nice turnaround and reversing of the roles between
the two composers, moving back to more inside playing. A nice
album with lots of variation, played by four great musicians.
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01-Miss Ann [04:10]
02-Dee Dee [07:41]
03-Free Jazz [07:34]
04-GW [05:57]
05-The Madrig Speaks, The Panther Walks [06:54]
06-Something Sweet, Something Tender/The Sphinx [11:51]
07-Researching Has No Limits [05:35]
08-Hat and Beard [06:12]
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55:54 min