Tyshawn Sorey Trio with Greg Osby: The Off​-​Off Broadway Guide to Synergism[3CD]

Avant Jazz / Free Improvisation / Avant-Garde
premiera polska: 2024-03-29
kontynent: Ameryka Północna
kraj: USA
opakowanie: Gatefoldowe etui
opis:
multikulti.com * * * * 1/2
Nowojorczyk Tyshawn Sorey to wielka osobowość we współczesnym jazzie. Uznany kompozytor i lider, gra z topowymi muzykami zarówno ze świata "kaskaderskiego" jazzu eksponującego kosmiczną wręcz technikę, jak i z tymi, dla których przekraczanie kolejnych technicznych barier nie jest najważniejszym celem, a którzy oddaja się wolnej formie, sprawiają wrażenie jakby pierwszy raz dotykali swojego instrumentu. Od nowojorskiego, wyrachowanego mainstreamu, aż po ogniste free-improvised. Sorey został niedawno otrzymał tytuł Kompozytora Roku przez The New York Times.
Na najnowszym, trzypłytowym wydawnictwie "The Off-Off Brodway Guide to Synergism" obok Soreya usłyszymy Grega Osby'ego na alcie, Aarona Diehla za fortepianem i Russella Halla na kontrabasie.

W 4 1/2-gwiazdkowej recenzji Downbeat o "Off-Off Broadway" napisał "muzyka wystarczająco mocna, abyś uwierzył, że energia generowana przez grupę jest jej własną dyskretną siłą".

Troy Dostert tak kończy swoją entuzjastyczną recenzję dla All About Jazz "Słuchanie tych muzyków oddających się jazzowej interakcji z taką fantazją przypomina nam, że najlepszy jazz zawsze balansował na granicy pomiędzy szacunkiem dla tradycji a odkrywaniem go na nowo. Sorey najprawdopodobniej zawsze będzie traktował priorytetowo swoje bardziej ezoteryczne zajęcia, ale w międzyczasie warto delektować się tymi przypomnieniami o jego jazzowych korzeniach"

Z kolei Ken Cheetham na Jazz Views pisze "Nagrań dokonano podczas pięciu wieczornych koncertów, kiedy to formacja Sorey'a zmieniła zwyczajową koncepcję The Jazz Gallery - labolatorium awangardy jazzowej, w miejsce gdzie w nieoczywisty sposób grane były jazzowe "favourite things", za czym jak się okazało Tyshawn Sorey naprawdę tęskni.
W moim odczuciu rezultaty nie przypominają żadnego koncertu, na który składają się jazzowe standardy. Przyczynił się do tego z pewnością także doproszony do trio Sorey'a znakomiity Greg Osby. Narracja toczy się leniwie, ale elektryzująco. Po wejściu w temat zespół gra realizując wytyczne free improve, bez grzecznych ukłonów w stronę mainstreamu. Spontaniczność ponad wszystko!
To naprawdę zdumiewające osiągnięcie, którego bardzo się cieszę, że nie mogłem przegapić"

Recenzent Jazzarium tak pisze po płycie "Największą zaletą albumu jest jednak siła zespołu. Szokowały mnie, znalezione w zagranicznych recenzjach, porównania zespołu Sorey'a do najbardziej legendarnych grup jazzu. Po przesłuchaniu albumu rozumiem jednak zasadność takich skojarzeń. Porównania do kwartetów Milesa, Shortera czy trio Jarretta uważam za głupawe i zbędne, tym niemniej słychać w tym kwartecie podobne cechy. Silne osobowości, które oprócz elementów tradycji, wnoszą do muzyki swoje indywidualne brzmienie i improwizatorską charyzmę. Kwartet Sorey'a to przede wszystkim fenomenalna interakcja między muzykami, wspólne kreowanie nowych przestrzeni, niesłychane słuchanie swoich muzycznych towarzyszy, otwartość na eksperyment, ale także dojrzałość i cierpliwość w budowaniu nowych elementów i wspólnej narracji. Te elementy gry zespołu sprawiają, że muzyka wciąga nas i intryguje. A także, o czym już wspomniałem, w pełni zasłużenie przywodzi na myśl wielkie zespoły z przeszłości jazzu i muzyki improwizowanej"

Editor's info
The Off-Off Broadway Guide to Synergism is a blazing three-volume set recorded live at The Jazz Gallery in New York, featuring drummer Tyshawn Sorey’s trio with special guest alto saxophonist Greg Osby. Increasingly celebrated for his notated works in the contemporary classical realm – Sorey was recently called “composer of the year” by The New York Times – and generally associated with the avant-garde, Off-Off Broadway is a return to his musical roots: a celebration of collective improvisation over well-known jazz standards. The album features his trio of pianist Aaron Diehl, well-known for his work as a leader and association with singer Cécile McLorin Salvant; bassist Russell Hall, who has played with Wynton Marsalis and Joey Alexander; and Osby, whose illustrious four-decade long career includes 14 highly-acclaimed releases on the Blue Note record label. One of those, Banned in New York, which captured the rough and tumble of his quartet in a live setting and is considered by many to be among his finest – is an inspiration for this release. Mesmerism, Sorey’s trio foray that was released earlier in 2022, with its curated selection of jazz standards that also features Diehl, is something of a sister release. But whereas that album is elegant, pristine, and jewel-like, The Off-Off Broadway Guide is raw, fiery, and intense. The band plays with wild abandon, careering seamlessly from one song to the next, a true spontaneous combustion of master musicians uniting through the common language of improvisation.

So much has occurred for Sorey since his last Pi release in 2019: The Adornment of Time, his improvising duo with pianist Marilyn Crispell. He has had world premieres of his compositions with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony, commissions and performances of his works by Roomful of Teeth, The Crossing, Sandbox Percussion, Alarm Will Sound, Yarn/Wire, violinist Johnny Gandelsman, along with recording and touring with pianist Vijay Iyer’s trio with bassist Linda Oh, performing with his trio featuring guitarist Bill Frisell and saxophonist Joe Lovano, and in duo with DJ King Britt, and was Artist Etoile at this past year’s Lucerne Festival where he premiered his work “For Grachan Moncur III” with the JACK Quartet. On top of all that, Sorey was appointed Presidential Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Pennsylvania.

Upcoming are performances of his works “Be Holding,” a large-scale operatic work with Opera Philadelphia, where he is Composer in Residence; his composition “After Oh, Freedom” for Davone Tines, brass, and percussion; “Perle Noir: Meditations for Josephine” at Dutch National Opera; the U.S. premiere of “Adagio (for Wadada Leo Smith)” with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra; premiere at the Aix-en-Provence Festival; and appearances at the Donaueschingen Contemporary Music Festival, and Darmstädter Ferienkurse, the festival for experimental musical practices. Perhaps most prominent is his composition “Monochromatic Light (Afterlife),” a work commissioned to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Rothko Chapel in Houston. The new work is in conversation with one of Sorey’s great musical inspirations: composer Morton Feldman’s work “Rothko Chapel,” which was composed for the space’s opening celebration in 1972. “Monochromatic Light” was premiered on site in February 2022, and just complete a two-week run of a longer, multi-media and multi-disciplined version in October at The Park Avenue Armory in New York that the New York Times says “affirms how abstraction can give form to suffering and freedom in ways more straightforward expression so often cannot.”

In the midst of that whirlwind of activity, Sorey found time for a five-night stand in March of 2022 at New York’s The Jazz Gallery that is captured on The Off-Off Broadway Guide to Synergism. It’s a stage that is known for presentation of new works and musical experimentation, but in this case, Sorey and his mates dove unabashedly into a program of mostly standards from the jazz canon. With all of his other professional obligations, he has found that there are fewer opportunities for him to just play drums, and even rarer are the occasions to play jazz standards, a practice that he deeply misses. He planned this gig to scratch that itch, and asked Greg Osby – someone whom he considers to be a major influence both as a musician and conceptualist and with whom he’s only played a few times before – to join him. Of course, what transpired was anything but a by-the-books standards gig. According to Sorey, there was hardly any discussion of what was to be played: “All I suggested was a starting point and an ending point, and wherever we went, we went.” Osby quickly proves himself to be the masterful improvisor that he is, with his quicksilver phrasing and surging tone, every solo feels full of chances being taken and crevices being explored. It is clear that he is the boss of these proceedings. The real surprise, though, is Diehl, whose playing typically leans towards the elegant and graceful. Here he dives right into the rough and tumble, playing with an unexpected muscularity and harmonic daring. Sorey plays with his usual tumult, skittering one minute and blasting the group to attention the next, all the while, with bassist Hall, swinging the music forward. The sets are mostly played without breaks, and the musicians stretch these tunes this way and that until all possibilities have seemingly been wrung out of them before they collectively – and seemingly telepathically – move on to the next, all the more astonishing because this particular unit has never played together before. In addition to the sheer audacity of the performance, it is fascinating to listen for the subtle cues and the resulting tension during the transitions as each musician individually figures out that a move is afoot. The title of the release is a play on the fact that many of these songs originated on Broadway or Tin Pan Alley, which was right around the corner from where The Jazz Gallery is located on Broadway, yet, the treatment of these songs takes them so far away from their origins as to be almost unrecognizable. The performance is a magical conjuring of something monumental through the vernacular of jazz improvisation.

All About Jazz * * * * 1/2
Even for a musician who thrives on unsettling expectations, Tyshawn Sorey's Mesmerism (Yeros7 Music, 2022) caught a lot of listeners by surprise. The inimitable drummer's recordings have long occupied that amorphous space between avant-garde jazz and contemporary classical music, and "accessibility" has rarely been the term of choice for his creative output. But utilizing a trio format including pianist Aaron Diehl and bassist Matt Brewer, the album offered six remarkable renderings of classic jazz repertoire, including such time-worn standards as "Autumn Leaves" and "Detour Ahead." Not only the material but the personnel choices were striking, as Diehl is perhaps best known for his work with vocalist Cecile McLorin Salvant, while Brewer has a resume that includes stints with Terence Blanchard and Jeff "Tain" Watts. Even so, there is no mistaking the idiosyncratic touch Sorey and partners bring to the music, as the gorgeous but frequently abstract treatments are anything but a by-the-book exercise.
As excellent as Mesmerism is, what might be considered its follow-up, The Off-Off Broadway Guide to Synergism, is even better. Recorded live at the Jazz Gallery in March 2022, the trio has effectively been expanded to a quartet, which now includes bassist Russell Hall and alto saxophonist Greg Osby. With Osby's assertive presence in the mix, there is now a more palpable urgency to the music, and the material feels more anchored in the jazz tradition. That's not to say that it has become any more predictable or routine, however—in fact, the sheer creativity on display is astonishing, and it amply justifies the generous three-and-a-half-hour runtime of the recording.
With an abundance of standards again on offer, including a scintillating version of Cole Porter's "Night and Day" to kick off the first set, the album gets its energy from the open-ended sense of play that characterizes each piece. Most of the tracks clock in at over ten minutes, which allows for plenty of arresting pivot points and fascinating digressions. Sorey can swing with the best of drummers, and he gets lots of opportunities to do that here, although his penchant for shifting the pulse and de-centering the rhythmic foundation of each tune are also in evidence. Diehl matches his versatility, with gestures ranging from grandiose to austere; his subtle shadings behind Osby on "Chelsea Bridge" are delicate and ruminative, but his thunderous torrents on the first take of Osby's own "Please Stand By" are rapturous. Hall's rhythmic versatility is itself a marvel, as he is able somehow to keep pace with the fluid peregrinations of the pieces, but his lyrical proclivities are also apparent, as he demonstrates on his nimble accompaniment and unhurried, meditative solo on Andrew Hill's "Ashes." And last but not least, of course, is Osby, who is in top form throughout. He can extract all the tender emotional content from "It Could Happen to You," but he can just as easily unleash a glorious tumult on Miles Davis' "Solar."
Some of the tracks are repeated between sets, but this hardly diminishes their value; indeed, it provides an opportunity to witness the group's creativity in action. The two versions of Osby's "Please Stand By" are a case in point: whereas the first is fueled by a deep-seated groove under Osby's keening melody, the second has a looser, more propulsive feel, with Sorey's punchy fills leading the way. And "Three Little Words" in the first set is a showcase for Diehl, with his lovely rubato opening that paves the way for a sprawling, twenty-minute exploration, while the second set's version is more compact and tightly-structured, animated by an infectious, swinging tempo.
Listening to these musicians investigate jazz repertory with such imaginative zest is a reminder that the best jazz has always walked the line between reverence and reinvention. Sorey will in all likelihood always prioritize his more esoteric pursuits, but in the meantime, these reminders of his jazz roots are worth savoring.
By Troy Dostert

muzycy:
Aaron Diehl: Piano
Russell Hall: Bass
Tyshawn Sorey: Drums
plus
Greg Osby: Alto Saxophone

utwory:
CD1:
1. Night and Day
2. Please Stand By
3. Chelsea Bridge
4. Three Little Words
5. Mob Job
6. Ask Me Now

CD2:
1. Out of Nohere
2. Ashes
3. Please Stand By
4. Three Little Words
5. Jitterbug Waltz
6. Mob Job
7. Uld Happen to You

CD3:
1. I Remember You
2. What's New
3. Contemplation
4. Out of Nowhere
5. Solar
6. Ask Me Now

wydano: November 4, 2022
nagrano: Recorded March 3-6, 2022 at The Jazz Gallery, New York

more info: www.pirecordings.com