AB BAARS TRIO + ROSWELL RUDD – Four - Live at the BIMhuis 1998 (2001)

Label: DATA Records – DATA 012

Format: CD, Album / Country: Netherlands / Released: 2001

Style: Free Jazz, Contemporary Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded live at the BIMhuis Amsterdam, June 6, 1998.

Edited by – Dick Lucas and Ab Baars

Design by – Francesca Patella

1   Miff . . . . 5:43

2   Boo And Milly's Marching Band . . . . 5:18

3   Pound's Stolen Mountain . . . . 5:37

4   Truisch . . . . 7:28

5   Song . . . . 8:58

     The Year Was 1503

6   The Hotel

       Drummer . . . . 6:00

7   The Horsehead Fiddler . . . . 5:08

8   Big Eye Louis Nelson . . . . 6:30

9   Bartolomeo Tromboncino . . . . 9:06

double bass – Wilbert De Joode

drums – Martin Van Duynhoven

tenor saxophone, clarinet – Ab Baars

trombone – Roswell Rudd

Of the second generation of musical freedom fighters, Roswell Rudd proved to be one of the most astute at collective ensemble work. That's not surprising given he cut his teeth playing Dixieland and swing. This session led by Ab Baars gives him an opportunity to demonstrate that his ensemble acumen has sharpened with age. The first five numbers here are devoted to Baars' characteristically quirky Dutch compositions -- little march tunes, folk tunes, wry pop tunes, and the like seasoned with a bit of harmonic indeterminacy. These are developed through a careful interplay between the two horn players. Rudd's gruff yet sensitive trombone and Baars' chirping clarinet make for a piquant ensemble. The music, for all its free flow, remains controlled and maybe a bit too cool. The same cannot be said the final half of the program, devoted to Rudd's suite "The Year Was 1503." The suite is a series of feature numbers for each bandmember tied together by Rudd's rambunctious, over-the-top narration, which mixes the sophomoric with the surreal and is quite as characteristic of the trombonist's broad Yankee vaudeville nature -- remember he did time in a Borscht Belt hotel band -- as Baars' tunes are of his Dutch sensibility. The session ends with Rudd's solo turn, where he exercises his own wild, avant Dixie trombone to fine effect.
_ Review by David DUPONT



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