#delmark

Delmark’s new reissue hews to earlier editions excepting a fresh essay from recently appointed Artistic Director Elbio Baradari that complement the original album notes by poet J.B. Figi and an appearance of the original analog mix officiated by studio engineer Stu Black back in the day. That absence of outtakes, false starts or studio speak isn’t a deficit. Mitchell’s three original pieces and the sibling versions of the title composition and “Ornette” exist perfectly fine on their own without augmentation or alteration. The latter, with its playfully accelerating staccato motif and stark interludes has the effect of piquant palate cleanser in its melding of free jazz rambunctiousness and measured moments of comparative respite. Mitchell’s alto spars aggressively with Lester Bowie’s trumpet amidst a dense thicket of pizzicato strings and Alvin Fielder’s porous percussive barrage. 

“The Little Suite” is so-named in part for its formal debut of Mitchell’s arsenal of “little instruments” as agents of coloristic creativity and catharsis. Chief among their number are Bowie’s comedically cornpone harmonica and Mitchell’s airborne recorder. A mutual pivot into old world theme of a vaguely Aylerian sort punctuated by whiplashing slide whistle is just one in a multitude of stylistic signposts that at once point to precedent and playfully pulverize the same. Bassist Malachi Favors’ fatter strings ply with Lester Lashley’s lighter gauged ones, cantilevering against the horns in a see-saw give and take that further keeps both players and listeners guessing. Maurice McIntyre’s tenor falls almost into a straight man role amidst the turbulent activity, almost, and it’s a guise he readily abandons elsewhere. 

The title piece initially trades the mirthfulness and temerity of its predecessors for a shared solemnity and gravitas borne on Lashley’s legato trombone and tension further wrought from pulsing strings and Fielder’s sustained cymbal and gong washes. Peripheral percussive instruments, scraped and struck, factor into the sound field here as well and the effect is prayer-like in its concentration. Duos, trios and solos ensue with the band rarely reaching full muster and favoring instead a chamber-like assemblage of revolving atmospheric parts. Bowie’s muffled brass builds an arguable anti-solo saturated in breath effects and whinnying expulsions. Pitch and timbre in pure, unalloyed forms win out repeatedly over conventional measures of musical structure. As predicted, reductive written descriptions desiccate and disappear under the import of singularly organized and agreed upon sound(s), all marshalled in the service of that most elusive of musical properties, surprise.

Toronto-based producers Bill Smith and John Norris recognized the fraternal connection between Mitchell and Braxton and in December 1976 they facilitated a studio meeting for the two men. The music on the subsequent LP contains an even-split vinyl real estate between the pair with Side A featuring four Mitchell pieces to the three Braxton compositions on Side B. A flatbed pick-up’s worth of instruments is also featured with Mitchell cleanly isolated on the right channel and Braxton occupying the left. Compositional systems contrast both on the sleeve and in execution with Mitchell using a numerical sequence for tags and his partner relying on the usual blend of letters, numbers and esoteric diagrams. Musically, these trappings fall away into a surprising symmetry of sound with Braxton’s contra-bass clarinet purring around the fluttering phraseology of Mitchell’s flutes on “Five Twenty One Equals Eight”. Flutes also factor beautifully into the verdant tone forest embodied by Braxton’s “Composition 74B”.

Mitchell’s alto saxophone jousts pointedly and fleetingly with honking bass sax on “Line Fine Lyon Seven” and Braxton appears to derive audible pleasure blowing florid raspberries on the latter behemoth. “Seven Behind Nine Ninety-Seven Sixteen or Seven” registers as a mouthful in title and temperament as the two men engage in an aggro alto contest of overblown sharp-edged expulsions. Mitchell’s “Cards – Three and Open” is lengthiest piece of the session at ten-minutes and change and offers the most extended opportunity to hear a rapid cycling through horns and overlapping tonal information. At the other end of the spectrum squats the burly and lugubrious “Composition 40Q” for bombastic bass saxes, which blurt and babble to jocular effect in rondo for the better part of seven corpulent and contentious minutes. Pulled from an LP source with a brief alternate take appended, the reappearance of this out-of-print encounter is a most welcome reminder of the creative kinship these two men have shared for over four decades.

That effect is entirely by design. Giallorenzo is versatile; depending on the setting and the company, he can bowl you over with a wall of electric noise, set up cranky rhythms that’ll put your hip out of joint, or melt into the right combo’s space vibes. When he turns his attention to the acoustic piano trio, it’s because he is looking for a sound and feel that he can’t get any other way. His objective is to write music that is inviting, and yet open to disassembly and exploration. He arrived at that destination of the trio’s last album, Flow, but on Play he inhabits it with confident authority.

The format is universal; people who don’t even know that they’re hearing jazz embrace it every time Vince Guaraldi bops his way into the soundtrack of some Peanuts holiday special. Thelonious Monk, Herbie Nichols, Bud Powell, Cecil Taylor, Matthew Shipp, and countless others have used it to articulate their concepts of form and interaction. Giallorenzo overtly tips his hat to Monk on “Saturday the 14th,” but also lets you know how he does it a bit differently by putting a personal springiness into the abrupt accents, and pulling back with spare, strategic humility to set up pithy, absorbing bass and drum interludes. But he doesn’t need to historical reference as a crutch; the preceding piece, “Synchronie,” has a similar bounty of just-enough accentuation to balance out some episodes of rhapsodic elaboration.  

The rhythm section is key to this music’s success. Avery and Abrams have honed their capacity for all-encompassing trance-induction in Natural Information Society. They’re similarly locked-in here, but they swing idiomatically while remaining alert to opportunities to alternately amplify and release the rhythmic tension. Simultaneously involved and ingratiating, Play is an unalloyed delight.