Elliott Sharp is one of New York downtown scene's more notorious affiliates, primarily heralded for his avant-garde guitar work, spanning jazz improvisation, jazz-rock, and blues-rock. He's also an accomplished reedman, evidenced on Quintet and previous ventures into the free-jazz space. Sharp once again aligns with like- minded New York-based artists, some of whom are leaders, and busy session artists. Residing within a controlled-chaos type scenario, the soloists engage in some intense duels when all hell breaks loose, but also temper the outlook with edgy, inward-looking minimalism. Sharp's brisk phrasings, tinted with vibrato and popping notes, often instigate the proceedings or generate a loosely based platform for the improvisational component.
Defined on a bustling musical environment, the quintet kicks it into tenth-gear on the scrappy and somewhat voluble "Katabatics." It's an open-forum, where much of the emphasis is placed on the frontlines' interactions and expansions with concise statements and a looping improv motif. They eventually calm the festivities down then assert a bit of fire and brimstone for the finale, as the piece "Qubits," features a motif devised on anguish and discontent atop a swarming pulse.
"Blues For Butch" is a mid-tempo blues inflected jaunt, touched with a smidgeon of expressive balladry. Yet the musicians lean towards an open-ended panorama via vivid extended note phrasings and tumultuous multipart exchanges amid a staggered flow. On the final track "Cherenkov Light (for Lol Cohxill)," Sharp pays reverence to the late British saxophonist Lol Cohxill with a low-key storyline, incited by Nate Wooley's muted trumpet lines and the band's acoustic-instrument treatments that perhaps simulate electronics processing. Otherwise, Sharp's choice of running with pieces clocking in between two and seven-minutes in length helps broaden the program's scope and elevate interest, since each composition offers dissimilar contexts and variable thematic currents. Glenn Astarita
Track
01. Magnetar
02. Katabatics
03. Arc Of Venus
04. Anabatics
05. Qubits
06. Blues For Butch
07. Lacus Temporis
08. Dissolution
09. Historical Friction
10. Laugh Out Loud (For Lol Coxhill)
11. Cherenkov Light
BRAD JONES bass
CHES SMITH drums
ELLIOTT SHARP tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, bass clarinet
TERRY L. GREEN trombone
NATE WOOLEY trumpet
All music composed by Elliott Sharp
Clean Feed – CF288CD