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Dominic Lash: Opabinia
ByLong time collaborator Alexander Hawkins ranges across the breadth of jazz piano history, evoking references from Thelonious Monk to Matthew Shipp, sometimes within the space of a single piece, but also provides the knotty involved phrases which create the substructure for the improvisations. A Spanish contingent rounds out the foursome, with reedman Ricardo Tejero blending flowing arid lines with reverberant trills and controlled over-blowing, while drummer Javier Carmona's tippy tappy percussion promotes a light airy feel, which doesn't preclude a muscular swing when necessary.
Though most often associated with the free improv scene, Lash also convinces as a composer, one whose writing has featured prominently in the collective Convergence Quartet. Like drummer Harris Eisenstadt and cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum, his colleagues in the aforementioned outfit, the bassist inserts melody alongside more abstract sound exploration, and the mix of the two can be intoxicating. A variety of approaches unfurl through the ten cuts which contrast brief timbrally adventurous fragments with more fully realized performances.
Unexpected juxtapositions abound, most notably in "Waiting for Javier/Luzern" where a rhythmic figure spread between bass and piano abruptly gives way to shrieking tenor and roiling drums, but also on "Piano Part Two/Catachretic" which starts as an exercise in restraint but blossoms into a jaunty promenade. The spirit of Anthony Braxton haunts the leaping intervals shared by piano and soprano saxophone on "Azalpho," while the funky opening to "Halt the Busterman" ushers in a lithe excursion for Tejero's tenor saxophone, bookended by surging unisons. It's not often that such nuanced charts are matched by such expansive elucidation, but Lash's unit makes the equation seem easy.
Track Listing
Isthmus; Waiting for Javier/Luzern; Hallucigenia; Lullaby of the Limpet (for Ella); Azalpho; Halt the Busterman; Wiwaxia; Double File; Anomalocaris; Piano Part Two/Catachretic.
Personnel
Dominic Lash
bass, acousticDominic Lash: contrabass and compositions; Alexander Hawkins: piano; Ricardo Tejero: tenor saxophone, clarinet; Javier Carmona: percussion.
Album information
Title: Opabinia | Year Released: 2014 | Record Label: Babel Label
Comments
About Dominic Lash
Instrument: Bass, acoustic
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