All Set - Stéphane Payen, Ingrid Laubrock, Chris Tordini, Tom Rainey

Avant Jazz / Free Improvisation / Avant-Garde
premiera polska: 2022-07-15,
Wydawnicto Audiofilskie
kontynent: Ameryka Północna
kraj: USA
opakowanie: digipackowe etui
opis:
from the liner notes by Peter Margasak
The path toward All Set began nearly two decades ago when saxophonists Stéphane Payen and Ingrid Laubrock first met in London in 2002. The Parisian was visiting the city, leading a workshop through an exchange between the collectives each musician was a part of at the time—Payen with HASK, Laubrock with F-IRE. Payen stayed at Laubrock’s apartment over the weeklong residency, and they immediately hit it off, working on music during the day and talking about it in the evenings. They remained in touch and kept tabs on each other’s progress, but it wouldn’t be until 2019 that they would actually play together again.

Payen proposed a project built around the Milton Babbitt composition “All Set,” which received its premiere in 1957 at the Festival of Creative Arts at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, an event launched by Leonard Bernstein in 1952. Babbitt’s through-composed piece sought to apply serialism to jazz instrumentation and was performed by a small orchestra that included Bill Evans on piano. Payen envisioned a medium-sized ensemble reprising “All Set,” with he and Laubrock writing a group of pieces for the same instrumentation. While the endeavor hasn’t yet materialized, the discussions did bring the saxophonists back together, writing a number of stripped-down original pieces using Babbitt’s pitch array and 12-tone structures. In May of 2019 Laubrock, bassist Chris Tordini and drummer Tom Rainey traveled to France, rehearsing and performing four concerts before convening in La Buissone to record the nine sparkling pieces heard on the quartet’s debut album, naming itself after the Babbitt piece.

allaboutjazz.com
The contrasts heard on All Set are both its center and its strength. The music, contributed by saxophonists Stephane Payen (straight alto saxophone) and Ingrid Laubrock (tenor saxophone) is inspired by Milton Babbitt's third stream serial composition "All Set" which was performed in 1957. While that piece was through- composed, these nine compositions stand out for the quartet's ability to balance composition with improvisation.

This quartet finds the long-time partners Ingrid Laubrock and drummer Tom Rainey collaborating with one of today's most in demand bassists Chris Tordini (Tyshawn Sorey, Chris Speed, Matt Mitchell, Andy Milne) and perhaps to many listeners, a lesser known saxophonist, the Parisian Stephane Payen (Thôt, The Workshop). Like Laubrock, Payen has an interest in both improvisation and new music and both of these interests are on display here. Compositions like "Harmonization" and "The Chant," both from Payen, are systematic and rigorous in form but open to improvisation. Those tasks are often assigned to Tordini and Rainey. Think of this music as the responsible adults and their puckish offspring. Payen and Laubrock negotiate the intricate compositions allowing bass and drums to cavort and gambol. All this, thanks to the excellent sound and deft audio mixing. Not that the saxophonists don't improvise, they do in the more open compositions such as Laubrock's "Evaporating Dew" and Payen's "Banda Linda" where the music is released from the written directions, but they find the destination nonetheless. This complex and disciplined music is anything but constrained; it signals unlimited possibilities.
By Mark Corroto

muzycy:
Ingrid Laubrock (tenor saxophone)
Stéphane Payen (straight alto saxophone)
Chris Tordini (double bass)
Tom Rainey (drums)

utwory:
1. Harmonization (5:22)
2. Spriggan (6:04)
3. The Chant (7:24)
4. Out of Thin Air (6:31)
5. Proportions (6:36)
6. Evaporating Dew (5:10)
7. Banda Linda (4:21)
8. Knock Whack (4:41)
9. Dice (1:19)

wydano: 2021
nagrano: Recorded on May 12th and 13th 2019 at Studio La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines, France

more info: www.roguart.com