Rob Brown Ensemble - Crown Trunk Root Funk

Rob Brown Ensemble - Crown Trunk Root Funk (AUM Fidelity, 2008)

Rob Brown: alto saxophone
Craig Taborn: piano, electronics
William Parker: bass
Gerald Cleaver: drums

01-Rocking Horse
02-Clearly Speaking
03-Sonic Ecosystem
04-Ghost Dog
05-Exuberance
06-Lifeboat
07-Worlds Spinning

After its successful premier at the 2006 Vision Festival, alto saxophonist Rob Brown took his newest ensemble into the studio to record Crown Trunk Root Funk, his first recording as a leader for AUM Fidelity. A formidable blend of funky abstraction, angular post-bop and dark impressionism, it offers an expansive view of Brown's adventurous aesthetic.

A two decade plus veteran of New York City's Downtown scene, Brown employs three of today's most in-demand sidemen in this quartet. Bandleader, composer and bassist William Parker shares a performing history with Brown dating back twenty years. Drummer Gerald Cleaver has been a regular collaborator of Brown's recently, while pianist Craig Taborn is relatively new to Brown's oeuvre, playing with him for the first time in 2006.

Brown's acerbic alto takes center stage over the course of these roiling, intensely rhythmic tunes, with Taborn's jagged cadences offering reliable support. Eschewing token traditionalism, Taborn avoids conventional comping, liberally unspooling brittle linear phrases under Brown's circuitous salvos, as on the thorny "Lifeboat." Working in tandem, Brown and Taborn meander through the shadowy "Ghost Dog," weaving through labyrinthine passages driven by a percolating groove and sinewy bass ostinato.

Longstanding partners, Taborn and Cleaver unveil their intuitive rapport on "Sonic Ecosystem," the album's sole electronic piece. Glitchy hums emanate from lo-fi electronics as Taborn accents undulating sine waves with pointillist piano phrases, while Cleaver quietly responds with scintillating tones. Sporadically interrupted by a plangent unison theme from Brown's plaintive alto and Parker's bowed bass, their conversation continues unabated.

Clocking countless studio hours together, Taborn, Parker and Cleaver are frequent rhythm section companions. Whether locking into the slow burn vamp of "Rocking Horse" or navigating shifting meters on the knotty post-bop of "Clearly Speaking," they demonstrate their affable interplay with fluid invention.

Eclipsing structural traditions, Brown spars with Cleaver on the first half of "Exuberance," discharging pithy, fragmentary spirals as Cleaver throttles his kit with unfettered abandon before the entire group reconvenes.

Despite the album's overall focus on rhythm, Brown reveals a soulful, impressionistic side on "World's Spinning," closing the record with stark, yearning lyricism.

With over a dozen albums to his credit, Crown Trunk Root Funk is one of Brown's most engaging. (from AAJ)

HERE

Rodrigo Amado - Searching for Adam

Rodrigo Amado: tenor & baritone saxophones
Taylor Ho Bynum: cornet, flugelhorn
John Hébert: bass
Gerald Cleaver: drums

What a band! And what music!

Rodrigo Amado on tenor and baritone, Taylor Ho Bynum on cornet and flugelhorn, John Hébert on bass, and Gerald Cleaver on drums, four musicians whom I've come to appreciate over the years and who all four stand for creative inventiveness. Here, they come together for the first time, playing the great music of possibilities, but doing so with a very precise voice : you have rhythm throughout, powerfully delivered by bass and drums, not melody per se, but combined lyricism and interaction is what the horns bring. In that sense the tradition of the jazz line-up is respected, but not necessarily musically.

Although the second piece starts with a slow Amado solo, that with its warm and round tone, could well come from jazz in the fifties, but Taylor Ho Bynum's staccato outbursts pierce through this, adding edgy sounds and counterbalance. Interestingly, they keep this strange dialogue going, with bass and drums slightly increasing the tempo into a kind of lightfooted dance, slowly evolving into a more meditative piece of stretched sax notes and muted cornet, all sensitive and subtle, then ending in absolute frenzy.

The third piece starts slowly, yet quite rapidly it becomes more agitated with again Cleaver and Hébert laying down a great rhythmic pulse for the short blasts of the horns. You also get a staggering - yet somewhat lost in the overall concept - three minute drum solo by Cleaver.The highlight is the last piece, which takes you along on a journey through jazz, with boppish episodes, bluesy moments, absolute avant-garde, yet ending with incredible beauty and restraint, deep and warm.

What you get is jazz, strong emotionally powerful jazz, very warm and welcoming, yet utterly free in its delivery. This is without a doubt the best musical result I've heard from Amado so far, full of paradoxes between old and new, between lyricism and abstraction, between the familiar and adventure, between sensitivity and rawness. Highly recommended! (from freejazz)

2010 SEARCHING FOR ADAM (rapidshare/mediafire)