A quick word about Jason Kao Hwang‘s outstanding Spontaneous River premiere, which kicked off the final night of the Vision Festival on Monday. Over 25 string players, including a battalion of unplugged acoustic guitars and six double bassists, plus drums. Sort of a Messiaen-meets-Bitches Brew affair, with truly funky passages but lots of slow, strangely mutating and shimmering harmony, as well as some dazzling pizzicato improv exchanges by the full group. All held together by Hwang’s extensive array of cue cards and finished off with a poignant solo-violin statement from Hwang himself. The cavernous sound of the Angel Orensanz Center, problematic in some settings, was just the thing for this project. And a far homier, more attractive environment than the Abrons Arts Center, the Vision’s main venue this year.
Also, last night at (Le) Poisson Rouge, guitarist
Kurt Rosenwinkel debuted a new standards trio with Eric Revis on bass and Eric Harland on drums. The burning set included Larry Young’s slow and strange blues “Backup,” “Boplicity” from
Birth of the Cool, fast and somewhat broken-up accounts of “Stablemates” and “Well, You Needn’t,” majestic ballads “Prelude to a Kiss” and “You Go to My Head” and an encore of “Just One of Those Things” (also fast). Kurt is playing a new custom archtop; his phrasing has become highly unorthodox and yet it retains a certain classic jazz flavor. His harmonic instincts grow more and more refined. The trio achieved a deep, swinging rapport at every tempo; they’re in the studio as I write this. If I’m not mistaken, it’ll be Kurt’s first trio recording since his 1996 Fresh Sound New Talent debut,
East Coast Love Affair, which I reviewed
here (years after its release).
Eric Revis also surfaces on multireedist
Avram Fefer‘s latest CD for Clean Feed,
Ritual. Avram celebrates the release on Monday, June 22 at Local 269.
The Muslim Voices Festival has concluded, and I very much regret having to miss Moroccan oud player/percussionist
Brahim Fribgane in a duo with the amazing Adam Rudolph. But Muslim voices carry on after the festival, of course. I’ll try to post remarks on the PBS documentaries once I’ve caught up with them, and tomorrow I’ll be checking out Iraqi-American trumpeter Amir ElSaffar and Iranian-American saxophonist Hafez Modirzadeh, pursuing “
expansions in the maqam and dastgah” in a quartet setting with Mark Dresser and Alex Cline.
