Seven abstractionist visitations from recent months, mostly West Coast.
Horace Tapscott with the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra and the Great Voice of UGMAA, "Why Don't You Listen? Live at LACMA 1998" (Dark Tree). On the title track, as the Great Voice choir begins Linda Hill's litany of vital cultural clues to which whites have turned a deaf ear, the audience are not listening. The urgency shuts them up, though, as Tapscott's Ark always has. This was one of the pianist-composer's last concerts, and he made it pay with generous, driving expansions on his own tunes and Duke's "Caravan," rollicking the 88s and clearing plenty of space for the searing, cutting saxes of Michael Session and the pleading wail of Dwight Trible. This music made a difference. (Buy/listen here.)
Vinny Golia, Steuart Liebig, Nathan Hubbard, "Next Outpost" (Castor & Pollux). Woodwinds, bass and percussion chase one another around like squirrels, flop down, look at the sky, smell the grass, consider their mortality, consider their immortality. When you're as skilled as these Angelenos, ideas, physicality and sound become one.
Rich Halley, "Terra Incognita" (Pine Eagle). Portland tenor man Halley and New York pianist Matthew Shipp show a special compatibility on this quartet recording with bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Newman Taylor Baker: Both apply rounded tones, tuneful note choice and a relaxed feel to their extended avantitudes. One is tempted to say they don't sweat much for free guys.
Scot Ray, Darryl Tewes, Danny Frankel, "The Eclipsionists." Like a shroomy stroll through the cacti, listening to guitarist Ray's off-balance trio requires alertness. But even if your mind gets prickled, the effect is salutary. Blues without roots.
Jim McAuley & Scot Ray, "Second Earth" (Long Song). When these two guitarists got together, their tuning techniques and natural symbiosis produced something beyond melody and scale. It's the sound of interflashing synapses -- delicate, intuitively beautiful, original, spontaneous. The fact that this recording happened without scores or planning makes the magic even more startling. This isn't just two extraordinary musicians, it's 2 exponentialized. Check it out here.
Keiji Haino, Merzbow, Balázs Pándi, "Become the Discoverer, Not the Discovered" (Rare Noise). Two Japanese noise guitarists and a Hungarian drummer strip the paint from your cortex with raging veteran musicality not available to your alienated teenage nephew who just got a Squier Strat for his birthday. (Out 9/27.)
Alexander Noice, "Noice" (Orenda). Talk about outliers, this SoCal composer-guitarist devised a coherent individual concept and stuck to it, crafting energetic voice-fronted music that reflects our cold, nervous, loopy reality so accurately that, even though it meets the melodic and repetitive requirements of modal pop, it can never be popular. The mirror's a bitch.