What You May Call It
Da Qi
(MechaBenzaiten) mechabenzaiten1.bandcamp.com/
Charles Downs Quartet
Inner
(ESP-Disk') charlesdowns.bandcamp.com/album/inner
Among the struggles that face musicians, one seems to be that today's short-attention span/got-to-grasp-everything-in-30-seconds public doesn't appreciate a performer who wears different hats. Maybe I'm imagining it or projecting personal issues here (being both a music scribe and someone who plays in a couple bands). But hear me out.
The thought came to me while listening to Da Qi, the album by the quartet What You May Call It. The band includes Steve Holtje, a man who is doing the Lord's work by maintaining and operating the long-lasting, somewhat infamous ESP-Disk' label. In addition to that, he contributes regularly to publications like The Big Takeover, puts together really killer sets as a live DJ and plays all manner of keyboards. On the latter subject he teamed up with baritone saxophonist Dave Sewelson, drummer Stephen Moses and bassist Joachem van Dijk on the 2023 album Orca Uprising, a set of sonically diverse free improvisations that I never got around to covering in this space, though it fully deserved it.
Saxophonist Chris Kelsey first showed up on my radar when the two of us shared space in JazzTimes during the 2000s but he also has released several albums on his own. Thoughts on some of them can be found here.
Rose Tang, as far as I know. doesn't have a day job as a writer or label manager, but she has a musical approach that spans genres. She plays guitar in Attitude!, which released Pause and Effect a deep and vicious album on ESP in 2021. Half of it was a modern take on no wave skronk while side two was devoted to flowing free improv. Both styles fit perfectly at ESP but, outside of New York, the blend could leave some folks trapped in the question of "What kind of band are they?"
That leaves drummer Charles Downs. At the ripe young age of 81, he has a longstanding reputation as a free jazz drummer, though for most of that time, he went by the name Rashid Bakr. Cecil Taylor, Jemeel Moondoc and the group Other Dimensions in Music all featured him at one time or another. Not so much a wearer of various hats, Downs' debut as a band leader might not automatically be greeted with the "oohs" that should come to such an experienced player. But they should. His style seems to take more of a subtle direction, serving to elevate the work of his bandmates rather than to bash and roll around it. This type of approach recalls what Newman Taylor Baker has done with the Matthew Shipp Trio.
That all being said, each player brings some unique elements to What You May Call It. "Phil's Instant Dystopia" gets is name from Philip Zimbardo - the psychologist behind the Stanford Prison Experiment - who passed at the time of the recordings. Holtje plays electric keyboards here, which adds a rather psychedelic, sustained twinge to things. He and Tang act like the wild cards crashing a free jazz duet, the latter adding some vicious slide guitar and occasional vocal wails. Downs begins tentatively, moving around his kit but picks up the forward motion as Kelsey twists out some bent lines on tenor, locking into some phrases later on.
"Reverie" starts off almost like a ballad with tranquil acoustic piano and soprano sax. Tang again adds some sustained wails which don't vary in texture too much, getting one-dimensional and making the nearly 15-minute length of the track noticeable. Things work better in "Itch My Scratch." Holtje switches to trombone, which alternately drones and creates the wild element again with Tang. Kelsey begins on stritch, playing with a lot of vibrato - which his bandmates imitate later - eventually switching to soprano.
The title track clocks in at 21 minutes but that length helps things congeal. Dense textures are created by Tang (on acoustic piano) and Holtje (back on electric keys). Kelsey begins again on stritch but really takes off after he switches over to soprano. Downs, who has held back a little up to this point, creating pulses, plays with more authority and power here. At times a bit shambolic, Da Qi nonetheless gives off the air of four kindred spirits enjoying each other's sonic company.
With his own quartet, Downs is joined by Hary Paz (tenor saxophone), Jamie Saft (piano) and Joe Morris (bass). Inner contains five tracks, all titled like the album with number delineating each piece. Each track feels like a spontaneous creation, and sometimes, perhaps organically, they seem to spotlight one of the musicians. Downs opens the first track, almost sounding like a more laidback Elvin Jones, with a flow across his kit. Paz and Saft enter and tussle with each other. After things reach a dynamic climax, the mood softens. Morris bows his bass and Saft explores some noirish ideas on the keys.
In "Inner 2," Downs lays back but can definitely be felt underneath Paz's rugged tone and thoughtful lines. Morris plucks a strong solo full of rapid movement and slides before the rest of the band reconvenes, again in a more contemplative mood, vaguely reminiscent of the final section of Cecil Taylor's "Cell Walk for Celeste."
After Paz gets a little more space in "Inner 3," locking in with Morris, the whole group makes "Impact 4" sound like a blues in the process of slowly melting, each player still connected as they drift apart. Saft gets in some strong attacks here, feeling at one point like a wave is blowing from one end of the keyboard to the other.
The final track highlights everyone's skills: Saft launching it with skittery, fast lines: Morris percolating with him and then digging into a walking loop following another big decrescendo. Paz again reveals himself as someone skilled in big tenor sound who can turn a beefy tone into a shriek with ease and skill. Finally, as the session comes to a close and fades, Downs is heard rolling on the toms, adding cymbal punctuation - wrapping things up with a final punch.
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