Sometimes, in its gig on Wednesday night at the Tea Lounge in Park Slope, Brooklyn, it sounded a little like a scaled-down version of Prime Time, Ornette Coleman’s band from the 1980s, but with more aggression and tension and repetition.
It also sounded curious and thrill-seeking. If the name of the band suggests the joy of being alive, that’s not a coincidence. Mr. D’Angelo, the saxophonist, had surgery last year to remove cancerous tumors from his brain; the costs were defrayed by small benefit concerts all over the world. And here he is, back with gusto, selling T-shirts at the bar with an image of his brain scan on them. The night before he played with what he called the Living Health Big Band; on Wednesday, with fewer musicians to hide behind, he conscientiously took pauses, reminding the crowd that he needed to watch his energy level. Then he hurled himself back into his work.
Mr. D’Angelo can do his version of pretty playing: nubby, sharp phrases on alto saxophone or bass clarinet that balloon into long and hopeful expressions. But on Wednesday he also delivered a scraping, contentious, fractured free jazz, fully informed by New York’s hard- boiled vanguard of the 1970s and ’80s: saxophonists like Frank Lowe, John Zorn, Henry Threadgill and Tim Berne. The drummer, Jim Black, responded in kind. He lifted his arms high to crash down on small, dry cymbals; he stressed upbeats, played loud in ballads and tied his rhythmic cycles into knots, getting an intentional trash-can sound.
Some of the music on Wednesday came from “Skadra Degis” (Skirl), a record Mr. D’Angelo made last year with the same group of musicians. Trevor Dunn plays acoustic bass on the record, but he played electric at the Tea Lounge, and that made a difference. He found grooves and lines instead of phrasing gesturally, and the sound of the group was sturdier and instantly more original.
The trio has a tune called “Gay Disco” and played it at the end of the set. It’s got the famous disco rhythm pattern, with the high-hat cymbal constantly opening and closing, but it was in odd meter. The concept was a little arch, but Mr. D’Angelo worked against that sensibility by blasting through the tune, roughing it up.
