CD Review: Jason Stein/Marilyn Crispell/Damon Smith/Adam Shead - spi-ralling horn

Jason Stein/Marilyn Crispell/ Damon Smith/ Adam Shead

spi-ralling horn

(Balance Point Acoustics/ Irritable Mystic) irritablemysticrecords.bandcamp.com/album/spi-raling-horn

In person, the trio of Jason Stein (bass clarinet), Damon Smith (bass) and Adam Shead (drums) combine integrated three-way free improvisation with somewhat theatrical, surreal elements. Their visit to town in 2022  included moments when Smith had several bows wedged between the strings of his instrument; Shead dismantled his drum it, leaving pieces spread around the performance space, with electric toothbrushes vibrating inside the shells. Their Hum CD (2023) captured the energy of those trio performances.

spi-ralling horn ups the ante a bit, with the great pianist Marilyn Crispell joining the trio in the studio. Whereas Hum features two 20-plus minute performances, this session bands a 63-minute set into seven tracks. Each one has distinct qualities, yet the whole album is best appreciated in one sitting, since it provides a deep look at the imaginations of these players and how they work together.

Maybe it's pure coincidence, but Crispell waits 50 seconds to join Stein, Smith and Shead on "a song paid by singing." She begins tentatively, but fits right in immediately, straddling the space between the bass clarinet's lengthy threads of melody - which ran across the instrument's whole range - and the ever-shifting rhythm section.

In that opening piece and the following "a universe of otherwise," the quartet moves on pure energy. Crispell, whose more recent albums as a leader have been more delicate than her work with Anthony Braxton or her own trios in the '90s, can still get aggressive and she moves in waves full of dynamics. As Stein winds down on this track, without fully stopping, some noises float to the surface, keeping the source (Smith's bows, Shead's percussives?) a secret that still enthralls.

The group could probably could have kept moving freely and maintained focus but things branch off in the next few tracks. "the ground laid open" begins with piano and bass clarinet in a duet (almost playing counterpoint in a few moments) before turning the focus to Smith and Shead. "saturant moon water" is a hypnotic tone poem with cascades of quiet chords, bowed harmonics and sustained high pitches. From there, the group shows how delicate they can get without sacrificing depth in "so close it cut my ribs," a title that contradicts the ballad-like pedal point movement of the piece. 

If Smith's bass was overshadowed during the early part of the album, he opens "a rusted bell's clank" out front of Shead's hi-hat, making his whole instrument resonate deeply without resorting to any extended techniques, not even a bow. Brevity is good but he leaves us wanting more. Free improvisation can often end ambiguously but the album's last track does with definitive exclamation points. After Crispell joins Shead for a brief duet that recalls the best moments of Cecil Taylor and Andrew Cyrille, the drummer brings the set to a climax with some loud snare crashes, signalling that they've reached an ideal spot in the performance. That kind of thunder brings an audience to their feet.

The meeting of Crispell and the Stein/Smith/Shead trio came together due to the pianist and bassist's mutual admiration of visual artist Cy Twombly. The album's cover art, and presumably the track titles, originate from the artist's work.