Friday, October 3rd, 2008 ... 3:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. ... KZSU, 90.1 FM

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Kris Davis -- Rye Eclipse (Fresh Sound New Talent, 2008)

I find I'm having trouble writing about the latest Kris Davis CD. It's good, and it's free jazz, but saying that alone doesn't do it justice. It's different, and it's clearly an evolutionary step and a gutsy one, for a pianist whose quartet started out with a more conventional sound.

The excellent Free Jazz blog has noted Davis' progression into more abstract musical forms. Her quartet, formed in 2004, includes Tony Malaby on saxophone, who's not exactly dinner-jazz material himself, but the debut Lifeline CD stuck to a comforting kind of sound, with plenty of towering piano and sax work, but an overall quilted feel that goes over well with jazz-club audiences. Have a listen here, on Davis' Web page.

The Slightest Shift pushed the limits into some very interesting open-ended improvising, and Rye Eclipse completes the ascent into full-on madness. I love it.

It's not as if the music has lost structure. "Black Tunnel" uses a dramatic composed line that appears between episodes of light, fast playing, where Davis does toneful morse-code pecking on the piano. The piece ends with Davis hammering one tiny, tiny, quiet piano note, a humorous touch that sums up the album's attitude.

Then, you've got the title track, which opens the album with an abrasive, pre-arranged clamour, an elephant stomp that lets you know you're not in for an evening of standards. The piece's guts are built of robotic piano rhythms that, after a quiet segment, return to sit underneath a gutteral Malaby solo.

Other tracks, like "Minnow Bucket," get into full-on group improvising but without slipping into that stark, academic atmosphere that European improv crafts so well. It's still jazz, and even club-friendly jazz (relatively speaking).

The wild abandon and velvety jazz touches make for a coarse mix sometimes, but that's what I like about this album. It's not a carbon copy of '60s free jazz, it's not your usual improv session, and it has a voice distinguishable from European free jazz. Davis has crafted something fresh and new here.

Davis' next act might be a full-on improvisational quartet; it's an equal-billing affair called RIDD, for its four members' last names. Drummer Jeff Davis is in that one, too, as is Reuben Radding, a bassist whose free-improv output can be sampled generously on his Web page. I'll be keeping an eye out for their upcoming CD on Clean Feed.

Format:
ARTIST -- "TRACK TITLE" -- ALBUM TITLE (LABEL, YEAR)
Horizontal lines denote microphone breaks.

Dan Plonsey -- [Sections P,Q] -- Wise King Taken by the Foolish One (Unlimited Sedition, 2005)

Previously noted here.

Previously noted here.

See above.

Previously noted here.

Previously noted here.

* Pulga -- "Fuck the Satellites" -- Pulga Loves You (Fire Museum, 2007)

Previously noted here.

* Eri Yamamoto -- "Conversation" -- Duologue (AUM Fidelity, 2008)

Previously noted here.

Previously noted here.

Previously noted here.

* Phil Minton, Yagihashi Tsukasa, Sato Yukie, Higo Hiroshi -- [untitled track 5, excerpt] -- Nippara/Tokyo (Austin, 2008)

Previously noted here.

Aside from being a fantastic koto player, Masaoka creates sound-based pieces of laboratory-like work. Here, she found a spot near San Diego where more than 100 bird species can be heard around dawn. Passing airplanes can be heard, too, so she took a recording of the sounds there -- it all fits together if you think of each bird as a tiny airplane -- and then had Jenreneaud record some acoustic cello parts, dictating the timbres Masaoka wanted inside the piece. The halves are very subtly combined; sometimes Jenreneaud sounds an awful lot like one of the plans, while other times a low, buzzy tone has begun emerging while you were barely aware of it.

Briefly noted here.

Elliott Levin/Tyrone Hill Quartet -- "Relativity" -- CIMPosium, Vol. 7 (CIMP, 2000)

An upbeat and snappy little jazz number.

Norweigan bluegrass-like band. Actually, I'm told it's folk music of Norway, but with the band's bright look and sound, the prominent fiddling, and the English titles, don't be surprised if your friends call it "bluegrass." The Norweigan vocals might give it away.

Previously noted here.

Frisell's latest puts him in a septet that includes a string quartet, with old friends like Jenny Scheinman and Eyvind Kang. It's a polished and rich sound, rooted in the soft Americana/rock atmosphere Frisell prefers, maybe with a little extra elegance and flair, an added depth not just from the string sounds but the improvising and the tiny extras these musicians input even when playing composed lines. Most of the two CDs consist of Frisell originals, but you've got covers from Sanm Cooke and Boubacar Traore as well. The latter, "Baba Drame," is a particular treat, filled with soft and rolling intensity.

There are 30 songs in all here, most of them miniatures in the 1- to 3-minute range. Apparently a lot of them were created as backdrop to an NPR project.

* Dan Burke and Thomas DiMuzio -- "Infecticide" -- Upcoming Events (No Fun, 2008)

Like Smoking Balance, noted here, this was a one-off grouping on Limited Sedition, a label whose short-issue releases were meant to emphasize the ephemeral nature of improvised music. In this case, though, the trio is regrouping for one show this week. It's John Shiurba (guitar), Gino Robair (drums), and Scott Rosenberg (sax).

The result is serious improv, but sometimes with a smart-alecky bent. On the CD, you've got a lot of small, curled-up noises tossed around, and all three players add various noisemakers, toys, clanking objects, etc. for a rich and sometimes ridiculous sound array. It's nice work.

Emergency String Quartet -- "Hill 5" -- Hill Music (Spring Garden, 2001)

Previously noted here.

Jim Ryan is reconvening the LCIG after a few years' absence. Actually, the group was the running name for whatever quintet/sextet Ryan had assembled, a rotating cast sharing a love of improvising. The latest version, playing this coming weekend, is a septet that includes Tom Nunn on his percussive/electronics homemade instruments.

A solo viola album, adventures in sound exploration. Lots of alternate bowing methods to produce squeaks, howls, scrapes, screams and whispers. Most of the pieces on here are pensive, with Hug wrenching as many sounds from the instrument as possible, but this one keeps up a strong jog of a pace, opening with rhythmic scraping and moving through multiple phases, little adventures.

See above.

* = Item in KZSU rotation
! = Pop anomaly
? = Item not in KZSU library

-- Go back to Memory Select playlists.
-- Bay Area free/improv music calendar: http://www.bayimproviser.com.