Arguably, the most fascinating works of John Butcher are found in his trio music: Butcher pitted against himself, his acoustic space indoor and out (i.e. The Geometry of Sentiment) and sax-fitted feedback units. There he is, I against I (against I), cooperating and brawling and agreeing to disagree with his shadows, a dialog that expands far beyond otherwise extended techniques of the instrument and affirms Butcher's entry in the The Book of Saxology. Oddly, the time when the term "experimental" flags his material is when he plays with other musicians, Butcher trying to find purchase within an ensemble attempting to measure up to his eccentricities and offer suitable riposte.
Weightless, a tenuous quartet of pianist Alberto Braida, acoustic bassist John Edwards, drummer Fabrizio Spera (all relative heavyweights of their respective instruments) and Butcher's tenor and soprano saxes, tests this ideology but comes out largely on top. After a once-upon-a-time-mysterious, now-blasé, going-through-the-motions free jazz treacle (i.e. a prolonged series of pitter-patter and quick truncated phrases that separates the small talk from the "we're really playing now" portion) during the first few minutes of opener "Apre", the group briefly pauses and dispatches into the real deal. Though Butcher has previously expressed a discord for working with drummers ("it wasn't conducive to escaping from jazz...I wasn't interested in a rhythm instrument acting as a slipstream upon which everything else sits"), it is Spera who steers the work into order: he pushes a proper, heavily swinging hard-bop quotation; the interlude is brief but enough to turn the band hard-edged, momentarily muscular, and shake them from their haze. Renewed, Weightless bombast for another four minutes before peeling back and finishing with Braida's sparkling, unresolved coda.
Though the entire disc is technically deft and dynamically expansive (particularly during "Centri", a sprawling 30-minute adventure), the beautiful moments of A Brush With Dignity arrive when Weightless shifts to delicate kinetics. For the entirety of "Vista", the members unite in a hush of tinkering, intimate and detailed explorations: Butcher's salivating gurgles feed a percussive patchwork of Edwards's pizzicato, Spera's wiggling brushes and chirping pedal-hat and Braida's muted strums and thumps; after a series of developments on this theme, they close with a striking-yet-narcotic blend of barely audible bass drone and Butcher's shallow exhalations. Likewise, the luster of "Termo" is found in the cracks between the larger "musical" passages. From the signal of Edwards's bloated jaw harp emulation, everyone drops what they're doing to give credence to Butcher's introversion. However, instead of mere acoustic surfaces returning feedback and reverberations from the concert hall (a 24-sided near-cylindrical space), Butcher is met with living reactors who reciprocate haunting sound effects (whispered melodies, croaking cymbals) and palpable tension.
His fame might be the selling point for club owners and event promoters, but a Weightless performance is not merely "Butcher and Co." He has found a suitable sounding board of human interaction to run with his ideas and meet the height of the dizzying musical bar he has set — even if it is a jazz ensemble.
Comments and Feedback:
|
