Label:
NoBusiness Records – NBLP 35/36 + NBEP1
Format:
2 × Vinyl, LP, Album + Vinyl 7", Single Sided / Limited edition of 600 records
Country:
Lithuania / Released: Jul 2011
Style:
Free Jazz, Free Improvisation
Recorded 14th
nov 2009 at België, Hasselt, Belgium.
Design
– Oskaras Anosovas
Photography
By [7" Cover Photo] – Olof Madsen
Photography
By [Booklet Photos] – Ziga Koritnik
Mixed
By, Mastered By – Michael W. Huon
Executive-Producer
– Danas Mikailionis, Valerij Anosov
Producer
– Tarfala Trio
A
- Broken By Fire .......................................................................
21:30
B
- Lapilli Fragments ...................................................................
17:43
C
- Cool In Flight ...........................................................................
6:41
D
- Tephra ....................................................................................
22:10
+ one-sided 7'' EP
E
- Syzygy ...................................................................................
19:16
Tarfala
Trio:
Mats
Gustafsson – tenor saxophone, alto fluteophone
Barry
Guy – double bass
Raymond
Strid – drums, percussion
This
is a double limited gatefold vinyl edition only, which, as a bonus, contains
one-sided 7“ EP and a booklet of photos of the musicians playing live.
NoBusiness
Records NBLP35/36 + NBEP1, 2011, limited edition of 600 records. Sold Out.
http://nobusinessrecords.com/NBLP35-36.php
Sometimes
one has to admit that, as much of a connection as free improvisation has with
the heart of jazz — an approach to music and life that has its roots in
spontaneity — it’s sometimes a bit of a tenuous relationship. European free
improvisation has a lengthy history going back to the heady late 1960s, as
musicians weaned on traditional jazz and bebop searched for ways to distance
themselves from cultural-geographic implications quite different from broad
European-ness. In places like Scandinavia, it was ironically the influence of
African-American jazz musicians like Don Cherry and Albert Ayler, both resident
in Sweden in the 1960s, that helped free up local musicians from American
influence. Cherry’s effect on the Stockholm scene of the time — including
saxophonists like Bernt Rosengren and Bengt “Frippe” Nordström, pianist Jan
Wallgren, and itinerant Turkish drummer Okay Temiz and trumpeter Maffy Falay —
cannot be underestimated.
Swedish
saxophonist Mats Gustafsson studied with Nordström and also worked with veteran
European heavies like Peter Brötzmann (Germany), Günter Christmann (Germany),
and Sven-Åke Johansson (Sweden/Germany) throughout the 1980s and 1990s. At this
point, he’s one of the leading lights of European free improvisation and has,
through integrating it with a longtime interest and experience in punk rock and
psychedelia, brought the music to a diverse stage. Lately, his collaborations
seem to draw as much from the noise and art-rock end of the spectrum as they do
improvised music and jazz, but that’s not to say his roots don’t often show.
The
Tarfala Trio is a cooperative venture that also features English contrabassist
Barry Guy and fellow Swede, percussionist Raymond Strid (Gush, Too Much Too
Soon Orchestra). With its roots going back to 1992, the group has gigged around
Europe, including collaborations with pianists Sten Sandell and Marilyn
Crispell, drummer Alvin Fielder, and saxophonist Kidd Jordan. Curiously, Syzygy
is the trio’s second proper recording in nearly two decades of existence,
featuring four sidelong improvisations on two slabs of heavyweight vinyl with
the addition of a bonus 7-inch. In true Gustafsson “diskaholic” style, the
package itself is absolutely stunning, housed in a heavyweight gatefold with a
gorgeous LP-sized booklet of photos by Ziga Koritnik. The music was recorded
live in Belgium in fine detail, making this a very high-end and honest document
of European free music.
With
reputations for both full-bore freedom and rarefied insectile distance, it’s
easy to forget that things like lyricism and delicacy are important, that
players with as much pedigree as Gustafsson and Strid are capable of poetic
statements. Part of this group’s penchant for simple give-and-take might be due
to Guy’s presence. The bassist has been a significant figure on the landscape
of creative music since 1967, and he shows no sign of letting up — “supple
orchestration” could be his nom de plume. From the opening entreaties of
“Broken by Fire,” the saxophonist’s tenor coagulations nod equally to Evan
Parker and Albert Ayler, logical incisions that ultimately catapult in steely,
go-for-broke exploration. Although a first-time listener might not know it,
Gustafsson is almost reined-in here, dipping and shouting as he bunches, blats,
and stretches out on newfound tightropes. Guy and Strid are absolutely nothing
like Thing collaborators Ingebrigt Haker Flaten and Paal Nilssen-Love, rather
constructing a lacy accenting thrum that’s constantly on the verge of
disappearing. Constancy is, of course, the stock in trade of this rhythm
section, ebbing and lapping cymbals enveloping the five-string filigree of
Guy’s manhandled classicism. When Strid switches to a bevy of mallets and small
objects, his phrases mirror Gustafsson’s flutter in beautiful succession; the
three build tension expertly as Guy strums and swirls against breathy harmonics
and eventual pulpit-pounding. The side closes with velvety, somber crooning,
drawn arco and tapped gongs in huge, sweet counterpoint.
The
third side’s “Cool in Flight” begins as a duo for bass and tenor, recalling the
excellent Guy-Gustafsson duo LP Sinners, Rather than Saints (No Business, 2009)
with slap-tongue drawn into burred lines. Jamming mallets and objects into the
strings, Guy’s pizzicato solo sounds more like a brutish take on prepared piano
à la Juan Hidalgo or the Swedish guitar wizard Christian Munthe. As the
saxophonist reenters and tries to find a matching cadence, it sounds more akin
to a drunken clamber. But the trio’s empathy is borne out through steadfastness
as“wrong-ish” notes and phrases become “right.” Dogged volleys are rhythmic
through lungpower and athleticism, glossolalic screams granted a workmanlike
search as Strid and Guy maintain a toe-tapping rigor. There’s a winsome quality
to the bassist’s upper-register strums alongside Gustafsson’s simple closing
phrases, which recall Archie Shepp’s protest-pastoral “There is a Balm in
Gilead.” This performance alone is worth the price of the set.
Taking
two 20-minute slices out of an 85-minute set might seem disingenuous, but
there’s so much music on offer here that giving it all away in platitudes seems
more unfair. It’s worth noting again that a significant swath of Gustafsson’s
work of the last several years has been wrapped in lung-busting machismo, tight
t-shirts and wagging tongues alongside free-jazz covers of punk rock tunes.
That music has its own attraction — outdoing PJ Harvey on “Who the Fuck,” for
instance — but without denigrating the world-class improvisation that goes on
in The Thing, Fire, and other groups, the Tarfala Trio embraces subtlety as
much as it does the full-bore. There are snatches of jazz, or maybe the whole
thing is “jazz,” depending on how open your definition of the music is —
danger, excitement, love, and knowledge, where the only preordained structure
is empathy.
by
CLIFFORD ALLEN
If
you find it, buy this album!
