Author: Tyran Grillo

Abe Maneri and Tom Jameson: Fourteen Bagatelles

| Tyran Grillo

Adventurous ECM listeners will undoubtedly be familiar with Joe and Mat Maneri. The father and son team were known for offering their uncompromising microtonal adventures without fear, expectation, or agenda. The music sang with a voice within a voice. Although Joe has sadly passed from this realm, his relentless passion and pursuit of knowledge live on in his recorded work and in the endeavors of his multi-talented sons. Among that progeny stands Abe Maneri, a musically unquenchable soul who has been quietly making independent recordings for years on his own quest for sonic truth.

Music has followed Abe, as Abe has followed music, his entire life. An instrumental renaissance man, he plays violin, cello, piano, recorders, guitar, percussion, clarinet, and also sings. Collaborations have placed him alongside likeminded sound-seekers, including Jessica Jones, Sabir Mateen, Assif Tsahar, and John Medeski, not to mention Joe and Mat themselves. On his latest, Fourteen Bagatelles, Abe is joined by longtime friend and guitarist Tom Jameson. Recorded in Abe’s home studio, the project develops a profound direction in an artist of already broad-ranging interests.

Fourteen Bagatelles

The bagatelle is a short musical selection, typically for piano, with an etudinal, airy feel. It doesn’t reach out and grab so much as caress the listener with intimations of larger mythologies. The form began with Beethoven and its suitcase has received stickers from such other composers as Smetana and Bartók along the way. Abe would be the last to place his efforts among them, but there’s no reason why we shouldn’t accept Fourteen Bagatelles as a worthy contribution to the ever-growing canon of the genre. The album is, regardless of its ancestry, one of deep listening that builds a discursive blend of jazz and classical elements out of “semi-improvised forms.”

Although Abe’s hats are as varicolored as the talent with whom he has performed, consistent in his work ethic is a staunch commitment to bringing out the human element of music making. This is especially true of the new album. Abe tells me as much during a recent phone interview:

“As a musician, in general—and perhaps this comes from my father’s tradition—one of the most important parts of constructing music is honesty of expression. There was a pervasive emotion Tom and I were trying to express, something a little bleak but not entirely hopeless. Often lost in the contemporary dialogue is the human component, and so we consciously set out with no other agenda than to make the best music we could make.”

Indeed, Tom’s soft anchorage in “Melodica and Guitar #1” (all tracks are so named for their combinations, with Abe playing the first listed instrument, Tom the second) is the firmament against which Abe dips his ladle into the horizon. So begins an experience of great beauty and tact, an evocation of places where one can feel caught, certain of some emotional sediment just below the waterline of form. Given its melancholic tinge, these bagatelles more readily recall Valentin Silvestrov’s, which have a mournful undercurrent yet remain true to the essence of their space. It’s a soft reminder that “airy” doesn’t necessarily mean emotionally vapid. “There’s a lot of control that goes into making something seem light,” Abe agrees, “and I think that’s the characteristic. I’m thinking about Haydn and Mozart, both of whom wrote an enormous amount of music which seemed ‘light’ yet in which there is incredible tension, sustained beauty, and control. It’s powerful because you can experience it as background music or as something more complex, depending on how you listen.”

Abe’s words make me think about my recent foray into yoga, a practice which requires unseen control in order to maintain its economy of movement. Mind and body resist the holds, storms brewing in every muscle, but eventually you learn to overcome it (or, rather, become it) and enter into a new self-awareness.

“I can relate to that,” Abe responds. “I think of the melodica tracks in particular, so different from the music I normally do, in which I am freely releasing energy into the air. Playing with Tom takes a certain level of restraint and actually there’s more energy happening within my center that’s not being released in the same kind of push, but it’s being released nonetheless. There’s a unique tension in playing with him. I find myself holding all the ideas in before letting them out. It’s more strategic.”

In light of this, “Melodica and Keyboard” Nos. 1 & 2 sound like fairytales, touched by wind and water and played as if recited. The first is a winding stair into an attic where a single window affords the intermittent blink of a lighthouse. Every sweep leaves a trail along the floor, marking the development of a solitary thought. This heavenly track is the apotheosis of the project. Keyboards creep into a few others, notably twice with guitar in gestures interludinal (“Keyboard and Guitar #2”) and of quieter luminescence (“Keyboard and Guitar #1”). The latter ends a mostly bronzed program with hints of silver. I ask Abe about sequencing.

“It was really constructed and labored. The first track was one of the first things we recorded. There were a few like that which were just obvious in terms of placement, and they worked better the more we sat with them. The last track was always going to be the last track. And from there, it was about logically getting from Track 4 to Track 14, thus forming an organic 45-minute piece.”

Taking this album at the surface level, one might say that Tom is only an accompanist, but with each listen his melodic contributions, his equal level of communication, becomes obvious. Tom is, in a way, the tree to Abe’s cherry blossoms, falling in sheets of pink. Abe elaborates:

“In some ways with Tom there’s a lot of push and pull. For the most part, each of our methods of improvisation and playing do stem from very different mentalities. Tom reasons out complicated passages before coming to the table—at least with guitar, which is not his first instrument. It’s more like orchestration than accompaniment, and my job is to find the best tension within it. We have been playing one way or another for nine or ten years. After a while, it didn’t matter which instruments we played; it was clear we were the same people.”

The lion’s share of the album is realized through combinations of various recorders and guitar. Those with soprano, despite their higher pitches, are actually the most earthly, each a cavern of wingbeats. There is also an elasticity to these tunes that gives them great endurance. The alto foregrounds relatively distorted reflections, which nevertheless retain their shape and open our ears to lessons of pattern recognition. In them are distant, pastoral memories. Tenor and bass recorders make one appearance apiece, moving from elliptical arpeggios and Renaissance accents to a grammar that is almost gloomy in its parsing.

The greatest comfort of Fourteen Bagatelles is that, by the end of its mesmerizing, lyrical dream, listeners can take comfort in the fact they were awake all along. This album is a flashlight in the dark, a means to an end, which is but another beginning. It is for this reason that, pressing PLAY for another go, I find my thoughts wandering to Abe’s father. I distinctly remember the first time I heard Angles of Repose and the new language it was espousing—a language that, although one I’ll never speak, I can at least attempt to translate. I can’t help but conclude with a question about what Joe passed on to him.

“It affects everything. In terms of how I play music, it would be crippling to do anything in relationship to someone that good. It was hard in many ways and took me years to even have the guts to call myself a musician. It took adulthood and separation in order to find my unique voice underneath but I’m also afraid of where I come from and what I learned. Anytime I’m playing, I’m cognizant of the joy of learning music early, of being exposed to radical concepts of improvisation, but he was also an extremely knowledgeable human. His level of knowledge was just so advanced. On the other hand, he was extremely kind and listened very intently, never pushing anyone from what they loved to do. Anytime I’m playing, there are always different voices of Joe that permeate my sensibilities. For one, there is the teacher of harmony. Then there was the Joe Marneri Quartet Joe. Then there was the religious Joe, who had a whole other way of talking. And then there was Joe my dad. The teacher, the radical, the man of God, and dad. Each of these encourage and discourage in different ways. A lot of my determination comes from not thinking about that too much and in being proud of who I am, making music just plain different from that legacy but also coming from it.”

And has he changed as a musician since becoming a father himself?

“It’s had the most positive effect. Almost everything I do is done within that great irony of parenthood: having one twentieth of the free time but making the most of that time, which becomes more focused. Nothing has played more of a role in my creative life, funnily enough, than having no time. It gives you a sense of purpose and direction, imparts an energy, a freshness of purpose.”

It is a purpose we can feel in every note. The cycle continues.

(To order Fourteen Bagatelles and more, check out Abe Maneri online here.)

Kayhan Kalhor/Erdal Erzincan: Kula Kulluk Yakışır Mı (ECM 2181)

| Tyran Grillo

Kula Kulluk Yakışır Mı

Kayhan Kalhor
Erdal Erzincan
Kula Kulluk Yakışır Mı

Kayhan Kalhor kamancheh
Erdal Erzincan baglama
Recorded live February 2011 at Bursa Ugur Mumcu Sahnesi by Emre Teke
Album produced by Manfred Eicher

In his book Global Minstrels: Voices of World Music, author-musician Elijah Wald describes Kayhan Kalhor, Iranian master of the kamānche (spiked fiddle), as a “one-man cultural ambassador.” As revealed in that same text, Kalhor educates as intensely as he plays, peddling music not as cultural snake oil but as an opportunity to cross divides. Through his collaborations with such influential acts as the Kronos Quartet and Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, he has continued to hone his sense of global community. Yet none of his journeys have taken him as far as those with Anatolian virtuoso Erdal Erzincan, whose lithe touch on the bağlama (a Turkish long-necked lute) has proven fire to his smoke. The result of their joint ambassadorship is an exchange of musical interests, passions, and respect in selfless conversation.

Their first collaboration, 2004’s The Wind, introduced a duo that could not only think out loud, but also feel out loud. On that landmark document the heritages of both musicians bore hybrid fruit, with behind-the-scenes assistance from musicologist Ulaş Özdemir, in a program that was equal parts thematic portaging and free sailing. From that debut arose an ongoing collaboration, which on Kula Kulluk Yakışır Mı offers hungry listeners plenty more to digest. This follow-up shares its title, which translates as “How unseemly it is to follow anyone slavishly,” with a folk song by Muhlis Akarsu, a modern bağlama hero whose life tragically ended in the 1993 Sivas Massacre. True to Akarsu’s steadfast character, slavishness is farthest from the reality of this performance, recorded live in Turkey in early 2011.

Kalhor and Erdal
(Photo by Todd Rosenberg)

On Kula Kulluk Yakışır Mı, Kalhor and Erzincan deepen their mutual interest in improvisation, sprouting five spontaneous leaves from traditional branches in an hour of uninterrupted playing. The first of those improvisations opens to the bağlama’s unique insistence, its oud-like twang foiling the rasp of Kalhor’s horsehairs before shifting into the folk song “Allı Turnam.” This juxtaposition of the unplanned and the internalized sets the pattern.

Although the improvised portions are distinct from their evergreen counterparts, both draw upon the remembered and the unknown. Classical standbys like “Deli Derviş” and the title track inspire cheers of approval and recognition from the audience. At key moments, the musicians get swept up in the power of it all, building from simple elements to powerful abandon. “Daldalan Barı” is a notable highlight of the concert’s first half in this regard, especially for the way in which Kalhor reaches skyward with his notes in the final stretch. Yet the duo saves its most transcendent moment for last when it blends a revisiting of “The Wind” into the multi-part “Intertwining Melodies,” the latter of which braids Persian and Turkish strands in a masterful summation.

With a single gesture, Kalhor and Erzincan manage to turn the “e” of “effect” into an “a,” filtering the golden light of their encounter into a musical experience so physical it would sprout legs and run if it could. These two sages embrace order, even as they convey the chaos of things, turning night into day.

(See this article as it originally appeared in RootsWorld online magazine. To hear samples of Kula Kulluk Yakışır Mı, click here.)

Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra: A Welcome Invitation

| Tyran Grillo

Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra
Ignat Solzhenitsyn, Conductor
October 7, 2013
Bailey Hall, Cornell University
8:00 pm

The Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra knows how to fill a hall both with people and with sound. Although it boasts a long history, during Monday night’s performance all one could think about were the precious moments at hand. Guest conductor Ignat Solzhenitsyn held the podium like a controlled tempest, injecting just the sort of energy expected of the all-Russian program. The palette at his disposal was accordingly rich with contrast. Smooth yet sometimes-rustic strings meshed with a superb wind section (the true litmus test of any such orchestra), while clarion brass mediated between the two with equal shares of rough and smooth.

Indeed, brass was foremost on the menu in the appetizer: Night on Bald Mountain. Modest Mussorgsky’s 1867 symphonic poem, the first of two in the concert’s first half, was originally titled St. John’s Night on the Bare Mountain and intended to evoke a gathering of witches on that same pagan holiday. Performed in full only posthumously, it was a relative outlier on the concert stage until it famously appeared in Disney’s Fantasia during the penultimate scene of unrequited souls. Such associations remain glued to the piece’s architecture and only served to heighten the opportunity to experience it in person, allowing concertgoers to indulge in their own associations. Its spiraling brilliance and instantly recognizable theme shook Bailey Hall to its core with all the threat of the tornado watch that had been hovering over Ithaca that same afternoon. It was tempting to hold fast to the piece’s backstory, but as the music went on, its motifs growing more distorted with every iteration, it begged to be taken on its own terms.

The same could be said about the rendition of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Isle of the Dead. Penned in 1909, it was inspired by an engraved reproduction of Arnold Böcklin’s eponymous 1886 painting. The result was a dreamlike concert experience. What became obvious hearing it live, and in such capable hands, was that Rachmaninoff had successfully added a Z-axis of time to the painting’s X and Y of image and atmosphere. The end effect was, despite the dynamic curve, quiet resignation. One must know unrest, it seemed to say, in order to seek rest eternal.

The concert’s pre-intermission programming could not have been accidental, for Rachmaninoff himself conducted the 1909 world premiere of Isle of the Dead in Moscow alongside his Second Symphony and Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain. More novel, perhaps, was pairing these with the Fifth Symphony (1937) of Dmitri Shostakovich. One can hardly walk through writings about Shostakovich without stepping in the oppressive regime under which he lived. To be sure, he completed his Fifth at the peak of Stalinist Terror, thereby marking his return to the concert hall after a period of creative lockdown (Stalin had denounced the composer as a kink in the machine of Soviet spirit). Musicologists continue to hone from these details a dual-edged sword: Was Shostakovich being patriotic or snide? Does the piece leave us with hope or cynicism?

Yet hearing it “cold,” as it were, one begins to appreciate the variety of signatures in the opening Moderato alone. From the call-and-response of its awakening to its massive punctuation marks toward closure, there was much to admire in being face to face with this symphony. The MTO heightened the Mahlerian qualities of the second movement, a caricature of waltzes boasting many thematic handoffs. The third movement—forever one of the deepest statements in all of 20th century music—was all the more a requiem. It spun a false security by means of string-heavy, cornucopian pathos and haunting tremolos before the concluding Allegro burst onto the scene like a frantic mother in search of a lost child. With sweeping panache and urgency, it brought about triumph with sarcastic grandeur.

Whatever anyone might think about the politics surrounding and embedded in Shostakovich’s score, the MTO reminded listeners that such music is ultimately about the tension of extremes. One must therefore take caution in folding so much moroseness into the batter of Russian music. Such a proposition, of course, softens when we learn that even Igor Stravinsky called Rachmaninoff “six feet two inches of Russian gloom,” but anecdotal and circumstantial evidence do not a lasting message make. Lost in all of this is the music itself, sitting like Rodin’s thinker on an unwavering question: How long before a piece of music can be divorced from the context of its creation and take on a life of its own? Regardless of the answer, this performance was further proof that the power of orchestral music lies not in the strength of its ideological underpinnings, but in the immediacy of its invitation.

(See this article as it originally appeared in the Cornell Daily Sun.)

Reviews update

| Tyran Grillo

With the posting of my latest review (Always Let Me Go by the Keith Jarrett Trio), I have reviewed the first 800 albums in the ECM catalogue. These, combined with the numerous random others I have reviewed from later on, leave me with only about 250 more to go before I reach synchronicity with the label’s tireless releasing. As I progress toward that goal, so far three and a half years in the making, I want to reiterate my sincere gratitude for those who’ve stuck with me this long. Along the way, I’ll continue chipping away at the JAPO albums, of which 17 out of 41 remain. Onward I go!

Keith Jarrett Trio: Always Let Me Go (ECM 1800/01)

| Tyran Grillo

Always Let Me Go

Keith Jarrett Trio
Always Let Me Go

Keith Jarrett piano
Gary Peacock double-bass
Jack DeJohnette drums
Recorded April 2001 at Orchard Hall and Bunka Kaikan, Tokyo
Recording Engineer: Yoshihiro Suzuki
Produced by Manfred Eicher and Keith Jarrett

Keith Jarrett is infinity with two hands. Few have ever molded the keyboard into such prosthesis of expression. Yet while he and his nonpareil cohorts—bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette—have repeatedly proven affinity for expanding, sometimes breaking down, the borders of many a jazz standard, relatively miniscule in the trio’s archive is its entirely unscripted output. And while we have gotten tastes of that archive in such albums as Inside Out and Changeless, this double-disc release is formidable for being, from start to finish, purely in the moment. One of the beauties of the album, recorded live in Tokyo over two nights, is that the longer pieces (upwards of 35 minutes) are actually the most concentrated, while the briefer ones (the shortest being under four minutes) are spacious and flossy.

At 32 minutes, “Hearts in Space” is a vivid example of the former. Jarrett opens the pathway with some galactic patterning indeed, which his rhythmatists then re-craft into a drum-infused satellite, its circuits frantic yet pure. The bassist is, in fact, the fulcrum of this opener, although Jarrett and DeJohnette do more than simply lob quasars of activity over him. Together these three strands form a braid stronger than the sum of their parts. Through their art, the surrounding air becomes enigmatically complete, so that even as the mood brightens onto a smoother avenue, where Jarrett has crushed the gravel so finely that the shocks of presumption no longer need bounce, one can still feel the storm in the calm. With Peacock’s intimate scaffolding behind him, Jarrett perseveres through some swing into a spontaneous standard, leaving a tailwind to inhale its absence.

Jarrett exhales “The River” with rearview mirror tilted anew. His glassine block chords and trailing chromatics weave a reverie so holy, tender, and mild that it sings without words. Following naturally from this is “Tributaries,” which paints with DeJohnette’s cymbal droplets, Peacock’s broad ripples, and Jarrett’s fairy-steps an image of mythical cast. The musicians’ trembling glitters like gold at the bottom of the Rhine, describing it not as temptation or curse, but out of a love of ignorance, of travel and movement. DeJohnette’s toms ease us onto the spiritual angles of this scene in arching ritual, tightening even as they loosen in shimmering afterglow. The drummer leads further in “Paradox,” pouring copious amounts of bourbon onto Jarrett’s jagged rocks while Peacock savors every sip with mmms of approval. An inherent free spirit works its way through the fissures here especially, manifesting as audible smiles.

Another pianistic reverie rises and falls throughout “Waves” like the chest of personified time. Peacock creeps into frame, his bass neck a periscope in search of land. This it finds, lured by the sun-glitter of cymbals. Once ashore, the trio hits the sand running, gathering provisions and making shelter in the blink of an eye. The end effect, although illusory, bleeds in tectonic shifts and opens dynamic memories across genres and histories. This summary approach takes deepest root in DeJohnette’s explosive wellsprings and rat-a-tatted closing statements and brightens his torch in the consonant admixture of children’s riddles and adult solutions that is “Facing East.” Its island hopping ways spill over into “Tsunami,” which like its eponym begins with imperceptible bubbles and curling undercurrents. By the time one realizes its proportions, its power cannot be avoided. So it crashes, leaving stillness and piles of grief. In the aftermath is “Relay,” a buoyant circumscription of energy that, by virtue of its dotted boundaries, leaves the trio free to roam inwardly to heart’s content where the external world will not allow.

Always Let Me Go may not be to everyone’s liking, but it was undoubtedly gifted with everyone in mind. In it are the dreams of a gentle giant, together a fraction of some unquantifiable composition. Although the giant may stir, the spell is never broken. It waits for that window of slumber to open and welcome us to the fold of its light.

John Abercrombie: Cat ‘n’ Mouse (ECM 1770)

| Tyran Grillo

Cat n Mouse

John Abercrombie
Cat ‘n’ Mouse

John Abercrombie guitar
Mark Feldman violin
Joey Baron drums
Marc Johnson double-bass
Recorded December 2000 at Avatar Studios, New York
Engineer: James Farber
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Cat ‘n’ Mouse introduces a streamlined quartet from the ever-extraordinary John Abercrombie. The guitarist is again joined by violinist Mark Feldman, whose peerless fluidity worked wonders on Open Land. In fact, the Abercrombie-Feldman nexus was what set the current project in motion, manifesting that former album’s title with even greater intuition. Flanked by longtime ally Marc Johnson on bass and drummer Joey Baron, the stage is set for a smooth ride through Abercrombie’s rich compositions and freer realization.

Baron’s brushes wax slickly in the waltzing “A Nice Idea.” A blush of cordial introductions reveals the shifting combinations that color the album as a whole. Abercrombie matches Johnson so well that the two seem like brothers from a different mother, while Feldman brings most light to this play of shadows, floating above Johnson’s protracted bounces. Not all is lilt and whisper, however, for “Convolution” speaks to the session’s driving spirit. Using small motifs as stepping-stones, the quartet deconstructs the many paths ahead. Lapses of unity quickly disperse and shed their skins in favor of rhizomatic denouements. Abercrombie ignites the night air, while Feldman rocks the unison motives with panache. “String Thing” is another emblematic tune, bearing traces of producer Manfred Eicher’s suggestions to play without vibrato—that is, in a more “baroque” mode. The end effect is magical. Feldman and Johnson breathe in alluring simpatico, while Abercrombie’s steel-stringed acoustic brings a warm underglow to the ice. “Soundtrack” evokes moving words rather than moving pictures. Johnson’s pulsing solo and Feldman’s emotional edge say it all: life is romance. “On The Loose” is a diptych, annexing blues with a classic quick draw. The rhythm section here lights a bonfire, Feldman more than up for the swing. Noteworthy is Abercrombie’s pianistic roll in the tune. “Stop and Go” casts a Jerry Hahn vibe into the country and draws influence also from Feldman’s own six-year tenure in Nashville. Its jocular grammar evokes Bill Frisell, even if Abercrombie’s inflections speak their own language. Feldman is all over this one like blue on sky, opening to an explosive monologue at the center and sharing crackling follow-ups with Baron. A real knockout.

Cat ‘n’ Mouse includes two entirely improvised pieces. “Third Stream Samba” harks to the Third Stream music of Gunther Schuller and, despite its title, is as far from Brazil as the sun. Its underlying rhythms are nonetheless engaging, spinning a world of diffusions from razor-thin bowing. Feldman is in his element in these open settings, dancing as much as crawling through the music’s evolving architecture. Neither is Baron afraid to whip up the dust here and there, as in “Show Of Hands.” The album’s closer takes its title from the drummer, who abandons his sticks in the final stretch and goes skin to skin. From the violin’s higher register it stretches a thin atmosphere, sounding like an ancient automaton creaking back to life. As the horizon whips its tail back toward the observer, Abercrombie flicks his lighter into the combustible air until all available oxygen spends itself.

Keith Jarrett Trio: Inside Out (ECM 1780)

| Tyran Grillo

Inisde Out

Keith Jarrett Trio
Inside Out

Keith Jarrett piano
Gary Peacock double-bass
Jack DeJohnette drums
Recorded July 26 and 28, 2000 at Royal Festival Hall, London
Engineer: Martin Pearson
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Of his approach to this 2001 album, recorded live the year before in London, pianist Keith Jarrett says, “Don’t ask. Don’t think. Don’t anticipate. Just participate.” Where for so long he and his partners Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette had served up piping hot new takes on old recipes, here they decided to do away with all that and, with the exception of their version of the evergreen “When I Fall In Love” that concludes, let the music create itself. What in others’ hands would have been a risky venture turns into a balanced, intuitive record from these most capable sound-smiths.

Jarrett, Peacock, and DeJohnette are undoubtedly masters of their craft, but each album has tended to highlight the skills of one over the others. In this case, DeJohnette is the trio’s North Star. He breaks in the stage like a good pair of shoes, making oil from grit and smoothing the way for Jarrett’s spontaneous fountains at every turn. With a freshness that recalls his Special Edition days, he emboldens the tessellated “From The Body” in such a way that Jarrett’s freestyle analyses can shed fullest sunlight on the unfolding story. Of that story, we get floods of exposition in a sandwich of registers. Peacock muscles his way through with a twangy abandon that characterizes so much of his playing from the period, leaving at the bottom of this crucible a pianism so angelic that it pulls itself skyward until it reaches the beginning of itself.

DeJohnette unpacks further brilliance in the equally jagged title track, which along with the first starts big and works down to the finer core before rebuilding from that core something new and glorious. His powerful brushwork and meditative swing treats every strand as if it were a means to an end and leaves Jarrett to explore their finer implications in a bluesy afterglow. The latter’s right hand has a mind of its own as it skips its way across the keyboard. “341 Free Fade” opens with tantalizing string games from Peacock, bringing back the trio’s tried and true formula of building molecules from atoms. DeJohnette delights yet again, his hi-hat carrying a heavy load into outer space as he tinkers gorgeously around the halo of its kit. And after leading the way through the foot-stomping ritual that is “Riot,” he opens the pathway to genius with his cymbals in “When I Fall In Love.” By means of barest whisper, he stargazes, trusting life’s stresses to Jarrett’s hands and setting them to fly like pieces of paper above a campfire—glowing as they rise, turning into patches of night, indistinguishable from the rest.

Inside Out is unafraid to live up to its title. Although on the surface it seems more abstract than might a typical standards outing, you may just find yourself lulled by its inherent, not to mention accessible, profundity. Were the album a genetic experiment, each track would be a kink in the DNA helix that makes its bearer unique.

Proverb Trio: Steroidal Simpatico

| Tyran Grillo

Proverb Trio

Dafnis Prieto’s Proverb Trio
September 26, 2013
Bailey Hall, Cornell University
8:00 pm

Dafnis Prieto’s Proverb Trio has walked the earth as such since 2009, but one might as well count the past four twelve-moon cycles in dog years: such is the telepathy developed by percussionist Prieto, singer-emcee Kokayi, and keyboardist Jason Lindner. The Cuban-born Prieto and D.C.-based Kokayi first came together in 2004, after which they explored their possibilities as a duo before recruiting Lindner. If the performance at Cornell’s Bailey Hall was any indication, the results must have been explosive.

PT’s entirely improvised experience means what you hear is what you get, and what you get you’ll never hear again. “Generative” is the operative word. These three men share a spark, a molecule of springboard action waiting to bounce. It’s as if they’d been beamed aboard, genetically preloaded with full compositions sleeping in their veins.

Prieto is both heart and soul of the group. Sitting behind a kit as compact as it is colorful, and before a concentrated, engaged crowd, he opened by floating a martial snare down a babbling electronic brook, quickly recalibrated to reflect an inherent combustion. Thus the pattern of exchange, fading in and out until a breakbeat hit the air. And as Kokayi dropped a political Spirograph from his lips, Prieto rode the rim across Lindner’s grander carpet into an hour and a half of chain reactions.

Attempting to list every genre activated would be like counting the stars in the Milky Way. Indeed, the hall was a galaxy halved, faces concentrated front and center and scattering toward the back walls and balcony. From tender infusions of electric piano and indie blues, quasi-reggae vibes to incendiary hi-hat swing, video game jazz to space jams: everything was fair game in PT’s tapas.

Kokayi bled the thickest chips across this poker table. Balancing Bob Marley dialectics with Gift of Gab pyrotechnics, he swung low from a high trapeze. He was, in a sense, another drum, feeding off (and into) Prieto’s locomotion against psychedelic Moog accents. The latter’s alone time cast a S.E.T.I. signal like a fishing line into the nebular pond until it got a bite, freeing the soul of the room through stargate after stargate.

Not all was cosmic dancing, for Kokayi unleashed his fair share of secular laughter. Between his riff on the perils of ALL CAPS texting (“Who knows what syntax is when you’re spelling out a letter with a number?”) and his spontaneous public service announcement as Prieto repaired a broken bass drum, his verbal multi-verse was a tangle of mother tongues and motherlands. Humming through his urban konnakol was an implicit critique of human interaction (“No real I to I…”), shelter to a handful of solid grooves from his bandmates. Prieto’s wasn’t so much a question of his obvious virtuosity. Rather, it was an ability to find the pocket and stretch it to the fraying point, to read signs of variety into every moment, that impressed. Whether brushing through Lindner’s birdsongs or warping the night like a reflected moon, he was judge, jury, and executioner of every cell that divided on stage. And in the encore’s build from atom to molecule, he guided a heavenward craft from the shambles.

The trio lives up to its name, for a proverb is that which has become so fully integrated into the human landscape that its origin is unknown. So it is with they who live in the moment. In a brief address between songs, Prieto said as much when he acknowledged the open circuit of their unplanned approach and welcomed all of us in attendance as an integral part of that circuit. We were the sounding boxes for their craft, and these words the mental dribble of but one among them.

So ends my freestyle.