If Brandon Seabrook’s previous trio album, Convulsionaries, was quietly pummeled by a modified chamber jazz vibe, Exultations, featuring the ever-versatile drummer Gerald Cleaver and the inimitable Cooper-Moore on diddley-bow, leaves no holds barred. A makeover doesn’t even begin to describe what has happened to Seabrook with the shift in personnel, now a vehicle in full flight; while the faint of heart had better clear out, everyone else should buckle up!
Cleaver tears headlong — Louis Armstrong might have said something like “Chops is flyin’ everywhere!” — into the whimsically titled “Flexing Fetid and Fecund.” It’s a scorcher, complete with guitar and diddley-bow overdubs and riddled with effect superimpositions ready to dizzy the most level head. For those unfamiliar with Cooper-Moore’s diddley-bow, its sonority resides somewhere between a percussion instrument and a thinned-out fretless bass, so it’s perfect to complement Cleaver’s rhythmic jabs, whooshes and ribbed smears as they whiz by. The tune begins with a kind of manic shuffle, with a little rockabilly from Seabrook thrown in for good measure, but quickly blasts through the ozone layer of tradition, warping in speed as notes bend and blur. Cavernous delay does nothing to obscure the contrapuntal articulations at constant play that unify the music as it shatters time and space. If, like the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the opener is a trip through the star gate to fragmented points beyond, its opposite is the meditative “Essential Exultations.” The slow-burner finds Cleaver and Cooper-Moore in gut-buckety blissful groove mode with Seabrook droning in microtonal evocation atop it all, but again, nothing remains constant as the track develops. Movement is not exactly what occurs as the bow-and-drums groove dissipates, making a laughingstock out of mere chronology. The sense of hanging over a widening void, some sort of increasingly claustrophobic point over endless space, is enhanced by increased tonal density from Seabrook that eventually erases all sense of center save that of timbre. It’s the only sound remaining when the rhythm section departs, a sonic monolith floating over silence.
Like the music, the recording is bigger than life, almost cinematic. Check out the deeply earthy “Absurdities in Bondage” to hear just how deep and wide a rhythm section can come across in recorded technicolor, due in no small part to Cooper-Moore’s whoops and slides as the diddley-bow takes on a humanity of its own. Thudding, crashing through the false boundaries of history, progress and construct, each cycle delineated by what it would be tasteless merely to call a snare pop, Seabrook’s dense harmonies make the whole edifice float. His guitarwork throughout is unlike any I’ve heard. Sure, you can trace everything from Red-era King Crimson to Ornette Coleman and Pat Metheny’s groundbreaking Song X as the music rips, swings and liquefies along its chosen trails, but no allusion can address its simultaneous density and surprising clarity, not to mention the harmonic syntax that seems to be Seabrook’s own. It’s thorny, it’s exciting, and it’s unique, and that’s quite a combination for a trio format that could easily have warn out its welcome with the first track. Seabrook proves himself to be one of the most creative guitarists around, and the trio is a unit with which to reckon.
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Alan Braufman "Valley of Search" album reissue June 29, 2018. Originally released in 1975 on India Navigation Records.
Alan Braufman – Saxophone
Cooper-Moore – Piano, dulcimer, recitation
Cecil McBee – Bass
David Lee – Drums
Ralph Williams - Percussion
In late 1974, India Navigation label owner Bob Cummins set up microphones in a New York City building’s storefront, documenting two short sets by the band with no alternate takes or additional cuts. These recordings became Alan Braufman’s debut album Valley of Search. Valley of Search has enjoyed a cult status among followers of this music, and it captures a unique and very alive historical slice of New York’s creative improvised underground.
From the outset there is a tender quality to Heart Trio, as William Parker, Cooper-Moore and Hamid Drake play with the heft and resonance of spiritual jazz yet the intimacy of a chamber ensemble, the album opener ‘Atman’ already a soothing balm. And on ‘Five Angels by the Stream’ they dip their toes a little deeper, bracing themselves for the moment of total immersion.
Brandon Seabrook Trio (11è Festival de Jazz de La Garriga / Plaça del Silenci, La Garriga -Barcelona-. 2022-05-14) Por Joan Cortès [INSTANTZZ AKA Galería fotográfica AKA Fotoblog de jazz, impro… y algo más]
Brandon Seabrook Trio (11è Festival de Jazz de La Garriga / Plaça del Silenci, La Garriga -Barcelona-. 2022-05-14) Por Joan Cortès [INSTANTZZ AKA Galería fotográfica AKA Fotoblog de jazz, impro… y algo más]
William Parker's In Order to Survive Photos From Le Poisson Rouge
William Parker’s In Order to Survive Photos From Le Poisson Rouge
William Parker’s In Order to Survive William Parker’s In Order to Survive: “Criminals in the White House” with Hamid Drake, Cooper-Moore & Rob Brown photos from Le Poisson Rouge, NYC on September 21, 2017 are now online in high resolution. William Parker’s In Order to Survive photos are here. All photos are available for purchase. Photo taken with Canon 5D Mark III body and EF 24mm-70mm f/2.8L…
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BrooklynVegan Publishes William Parker's In Order to Survive Photos And Show Review
BrooklynVegan Publishes William Parker’s In Order to Survive Photos And Show Review
William Parker BrooklynVegan has published my William Parker’s In Order to Survive: “Criminals in the White House” with Hamid Drake, Cooper-Moore & Rob Brown photos and show review from September 21, 2017 at Le Poisson Rouge, NYC. See the review with the photos here. All the William Parker’s In Order to Survive photos will be available for purchase here on October 5. Photo taken with Canon 5D…
Tomajazz: 20º Aniversario Arco y Flecha (Ateneu de Nou Barris, 2015-11-07)
sábado 7 de noviembre de 2015 | Ateneu Popular de Nou Barris (Barcelona) Digital Primitives: Cooper-Moore: diddley-bo, percusión, flauta, ashimba, mouth bow, hoe-handle harp, Assif Tsahar: saxo tenor, clarinete bajo, Chad Taylor: batería. Discordian Community Ensemble: Ilona Scheider: voz, El Pricto: conducción y saxo alto, Iván González: trompeta, Luiz Rocha: clarinete bajo, Ferran Besalduch:…
