Steve Coleman's Natal Eclipse
Morphogenesis
(Pi Recordings) www.pirecordings.com
Steve Coleman stepped away from his long-standing band Five Elements for his latest release. It doesn't mark a radical departure from his idiosyncratic rhythmic cycles. Natal Eclipse also includes Five Elements members Jonathan Finlayson (trumpet), Jen Shyu (vocal) and Maria Grand (tenor saxophone). Conspicuously absent from the set is a trap drummer, after previous releases that included upwards of two of them, in addition to a percussionist. Neeraj Mehta adds percussion to half the album, sometimes setting a tempo, while other times it adds extra coloring to the music. All ears move towards the melodic landscape, which is rich, dense and alluring, to say the least.
The musicians above, and Coleman's alto saxophone, are joined by Matt Mitchell (piano), Rane Moore (clarinet), Kristin Lee (violin) and Greg Chudzik (bass). (Note: the personnel gives the session an equal gender balance.) Mitchell's name should be familiar from work with Tim Berne and Rudresh Mahanthappa and his own albums (more recently, a solo disc of Berne's music on piano).
The remaining three play classical music, though they fit right in with the improvisational nature of this work. Moore's clarinet adds a rich quality together with Coleman and Grand. Lee's violin brings a bit of mystery to the set. Chudzik has the most challenging task of all: keeping the tempos steady and secure. Often he's plucking a single note through the shifting rhythms, which could be tediously simple but more likely requires the discipline and focus of his conservatory background. In "Shoulder Roll," he finally gets a chance to "solo" and he executes the work so clearly, it's hard to tell if it was spontaneous or composed. Either way, it must be heard.
Coleman found inspiration for Morphogenesis in the moves utilized by boxers. Titles like "Inside Game," "Dancing and Jabbing" and "Shoulder Roll" bear this out. Musically, Coleman's crisp alto begins "Pull Counter" in a manner that evokes both the sport and ballet, playing against the strings and reeds, before Shyu joins him the staccato pops of the melody, and Mitchell and Chudzik add some angular but firm accompaniment.
The album's title, Coleman says, is used to define the "process that causes an organism to develop its form." It epitomizes the way he composes the music and explains "Morphing" a 14-minute track that unfolds through Coleman's playing, with his bandmates alternately grabbing the line from him and accentuating his thoughts. By the final quarter, Coleman and Finlayson play one line together while Shyu sings a counter melody (if it can be called that) and Moore's clarinet adds shades of sound in the background.
Not all of Morphogenesis is built on multiple layers. "NOH" and "SPAN" were improvised in the studio, the latter creating an especially tight vamp with counterpoint and accents that shift on and off the beat. Shyu , who also uses her voice like a skillful insftumentalist, adds more "Horda" is composed but built on an electric bit of group improvisation.
All of this description might give the false impression of Coleman being impenetrable or as challenging as the heaviest modern new music. Quite the contrary. His alto cuts through with a welcoming, warm quality and his arrangements, jumpy as they might be, compel listeners to follow the melody to see where it leads, who will take and to remember what to further explore on the next listen.
Miles Okazaki
Trickster
(Pi Recordings) www.pirecordings.com
Speaking of Five Elements, guitarist Miles Okazaki has been a member of that group for eight years, in addition to work as a leader. Trickster (his Pi debut) came out back in March and this seemed like the best time to finally put words down about this interesting release.
The guitarist has a similar sort of quest as Coleman, finding inspiration for his writing in non-musical settings. In this case, Okazaki was inspired by tricksters from literature, who "disrupt the state of things and break taboos and conventions," much like he and Coleman do in their writing. Like the saxophonist, Okazaki thrives in unusual rhythms, going so far to say the approach represents the nature of the tricksters. Each track depicts a different troublemaker, with explanations in each track covered in the liner notes.
It's surprising that all of the pieces are built on groups of 12 or 16 bar structures played in either 4/4 or 3/4. Inside those structures are "folds" or twists that can trip up the listener. Okazaki's writing often turns on a dime, rhythmically, but when he or pianist Craig Taborn take solos, they often do it over a vamp created by the song's central rhythm. When this happens, the quartet sounds steady but never rigid. The guitar has a clean, sleek tone that comes to life during the solos. Bassist Anthony Tidd and drummer Sean Rickman, both also Five Elements members, offer the perfect support, firm yet groovy.
Taborn and Okazaki create a very "classic" '50s style guitar/piano blend on "Kudzu," which they channel into a very modern melody. Later in the piece Tidd slips into the bass's sub-register, making it sound like the instrument is coming unspooled even as it holds down the fort. Rickman gets his chance to work in multiple rhythms on top of one another in the tense "The West."
"The Calendar" provides the album's most beautiful moment, and it lasts over nine minutes. Built on the trickster myth of the Egyptian god Thoth, who played a game of dice with the moon, it feels repetitive though the bass and piano shift underneath it and the crack of Rickman's snare drum never stays in the same place. The blend of the group feels pretty hypnotic.
The cover of Trickster depicts two origami sculptures, a fox and a raven, each made from a single piece of paper. On the back cover, both sheets are unfolded to show how complexity came from simple means. Okazaki did this because it explains the music so well. It also proves the importance of listening closely and discovering how all those folds and contours work.
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