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Magic: Joe McPhee with Trio X and Mikolaj Trzaska at Firehouse 12 in New Haven

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Magic
Firehouse 12
New Haven, Connecticut
October 31, 2008

The wonder of magic is captured in transformation: witnessing how seemingly disparate elements merge and evolve into something greater than its parts with an impact that is unexpected and glistens with beauty. That Joe McPhee so aptly named the combination of Trio X and Mikolaj Trzaska, "Magic," is evidence of his understanding that out of two separate entities something wonderful could happen, and so it did, at Firehouse 12, on October 31, 2008.

As McPhee explained at the beginning of the concert, he met altoist Mikolaj Trzaska when Trio X was touring Poland. The recording Intimate Conversations documented that meeting, without bassist Dominic Duval. But McPhee concluded that the four would make a solid quartet. And he was right.

There was good music to be heard during the evening, but the occasion of this rare meeting of creative minds transcended the music. It was an event where the sensitivity of one musician to another could be discerned by all in attendance, detected and appreciated because the band operated as one organism.



Bassist Duval and drummer Jay Rosen established the conditions in which the music could take root and grow. The texture was smooth; the volume was low; the colors were balanced from a low bass flutter to a light cymbal hiss. Increasingly, the bass and drums became more engaged; rhythm ensued. McPhee, alto in hand, waited until the appropriate moment to introduce the horn component with quick midrange valving that swooped into increasingly stronger low tones to catapult into a single emphasized high pitch, at which point he stopped. Then Trzaska, standing in the middle of the performance area with his alto, blew melodiously, incorporating deep-toned ostinatos, his unmistakable personal voice gradually replacing the sound if a mere reed.

Trzaska's tempo regulated the bass and drums. The altoist separated the notes of the melody, moving them into an array of arpeggios. Duval steadily plucked the strings within the pulse, accenting it by forcefully pulling the strings and letting them snap back. Rosen picked up the pace on drums, building to a cymbal/snare crash. At that point McPhee intercepted Trzaska's arpeggios in a blast whose torrents soon subsided to the same dynamics of the melodic mode Trzaska had introduced. This was the peak; all four musicians playing at their capacity and in support of one another, rather than going different directions. The descent toward a transition became clear as Duval plucked 1-2, 1-2 and reached below the bass's bridge to tweak out phrasing resembling a lullaby; Rosen hushed the drums; and Trzaska pushed air through the reed.

It was a transition to another surge, in which the bowed bass sounded agitated; both altos rang out through the vibratos characterizing their urgent exclamations; and small-to-large cymbals were merely touched with a brush. Waves from one instrument to the other washed over the room: Duval bowed the bass arduously; Trzaska repeated figure after figure while McPhee rose above the band's collective sound with a huge melody to end with prolonged notes that provided a counterpoint to Trzaska's peaked valving/singing combination. Closure was nearing as the two altos maintained a tightly coordinated flight pattern: Trzaska's notes were short, McPhee's were long. Duval pulled his bow across the bass strings in a final stroke.

Whatever happened in the first piece exemplified the trust that the musicians had in one another—implicit faith that no individual was going to fall short of what was necessary to make the music work as a collective expression. The succeeding pieces proved to be nothing less than manifestations of flexibility within unity. Call-and-response passages metamorphosed into the profound resolutions that can can develop only from deep conversation.

The instrumentation achieved balance; there was no straining. Duval rendered his contributions at once fluid and grounding; his participation was rich and full, never borrowing from others' lines, but intent on accentuating them with glissandos, fingers swirling in circles across the bass strings, or with dedicated bowed strokes which embellished the resonant sounds. Rosen shines with his attention to detail: it is the dynamic of his percussive language. Without him, the band might lose an intensity that invigorates its overall timbral brilliance and subtlety.



Trzaska and McPhee shadowed each other, Trzaska manifesting a sense of his instrument and a melodic acuity not unlike McPhee's. When he brought out his bass clarinet, McPhee played soprano, the low and high modalities of the two horns complementing each other. When McPhee played his alto clarinet, low and midrange tones supported one another. It was not until the second set that Trzaska relinquished all timidity and the two reedists let fly, unfailingly bringing out the best in one another. Their tonalities continuously matched up: even when they exchanged parts or played in sequence, collided or moved in parallel, harmonized or synchronized. The journey progressed courageously, ultimately reaching the border of a large, symphonic musical space marked by complete unity and singular tonal purity.

McPhee is always McPhee, so strong, so humble, so loving, so egalitarian, and totally in control of whatever instrument he chooses to play (the pocket trumpet, in addition to reeds). While playing soprano in the first set, he took a small lead at one point. His improvisation was swinging, circular yet progressive, singing a coherent tune. His sound was packed with both musical and emotional content, and his versatility and elegance augmented the transmission of nothing but joy. He caressed the music like a lover; he painted it with the expressionistic and romantic gestures of an artist.

And though he appeared in the guise of a musician, McPhee was the magician. There certainly was no denying that he had pulled a couple of rabbits out of his hat by putting his Trio and Trzaska together. An alchemy more than justifying the leader's designation of the group's name: "Magic." In fact, the trick proved nothing less than a fairy-tale come true.



Photo credit

Lyn Horton


Vist Joe McPhee on the web.

Visit Trio X on the web.

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