CD Review: Greenlief/Raskin 2 + 2 With Jen Baker & Liz Allbee

 

2 + 2

2 + 2 With Jen Baker & Liz Allbee

(Self-released) greenliefraskin22.bandcamp.com/album/2-2-with-jen-baker-liz-allbee

Rova Saxophone Quartet member Jon Raskin (alto, baritone saxophones) and Phillip Greenlief (soprano, alto and tenor saxophones) created 2 + 2 with the idea of combining their reeds with two other "like" instruments. In this recently released 2006 session, they enlisted Liz Allbee (trumpet) and Jen Baker (trombone) for a set of group improvisations mixed with some composed graphic scores. 

Without a rhythm section to keep the ground in sight, this quartet is free to take to the skies, paying heed only to the sounds emanating around them. 

An album like this can make the listener wonder what is greater, the whole or the sum of the parts. The question comes to mind because there are many moments through the 38-minute session where Allbee's trumpet doesn't sound prominent. It could be that she's waiting for the right moment to come in. Conversely, it could mean that she's blending really well with her bandmates, blurring the reed/brass line. In "Tableaux," the opening group improvisation, her muted playing is noticeable after a few minutes, in subtle contrast to the Baker's brawny exhortations and the contrasting saxophones (soprano and baritone). 

However, "Night Town," the nearly 20-minute centerpiece of the album (a score by Greenlief), is where Allbee makes her presence known. She begins unaccompanied and continues for nearly five minutes, with a tone and ideas that feel like a trumpet oratorio cut up into smaller pieces and delivered that way, with some  notes bent or rumpled for dynamics. As she fades naturally, her companions enter with a blend of blown air, pad flutters and percussive sounds that evoke brushes on a snare drum. As things build, the overtones ring out almost like gamelans.

So maybe the whole is greater in this case. Perhaps it's better not to pick things apart, trying to figure out which saxophonist is on alto or what horns about being used, for instance. Better to notice the way the quartet interacts. In "2 + 2" (the other scored piece, by Raskin) everyone moves their own way, but the sound is never cluttered. Also, at that moment when Allbee is noticeable in "Tableaux" everyone has landed together on a chord, or an approximation of one. That kind of confluence contributes to the excitement in improvisation, just as much as Greenlief's call to arms at the start of "Light Bending" elicits a variety of wails and moans from everyone.

The sound of 2 + 2 adds to the vitality of the performance. Recorded at the 21 Grand DIY space, the acoustics put the listener there, noticing the way the natural reverb affects the horns, doing things like adding more bite to the staccato notes from the saxophones.