A double disc with the indefatigable Dorner (trumpet) and a Japanese rhythm section of Imai (guitar), Ino (bass) and Tanaka (drums), a trio made up of the first three on disc one, a quartet for most of disc two.
The first thing to know, given Dorner's wide range in playing styles, is that this is essentially a jazz album albeit one extending from recent European improvising traditions. There's a great deal of Derek Bailey feel in play — much of it could have derived from a given Company week or, in the pieces featuring the guitar, Roscoe Mitchell's Sound Ensemble from the early 80s. Though free, there's plenty of recognizable jazz tropes and phrasing, even as Dorner interjects his patented breath tones and sputter, though they do begin to stretch out non-idiomatically here and there, notably on the fourth track, "If". The first disc will prove enticing and exciting to free jazz aficionados, less so to those who prefer Dorner in more electro-acoustic modes, for whom it may well sound passé and excessively busy.
While the pieces on the first disc are improvisations, those on the second are credited to Dorner and, though loose, are easily discerned amidst the free playing and, indeed, act toward the benefit of the quartet's sound, corralling the more noodlesome tendencies, perhaps, of some of the musicians. The music is more abrasive, more strident (some fine arco work from Ino), but that's all to the good as the brutality of it allows the group to gain access to territories that, while less polite, are more fecund.
It's a solid offering, nothing earth-shaking or terribly forward-thinking, but good, tough avant jazz.
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Brian Olewnick 2010-07-28
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