Steve Swell: Dances With Questions

American trombonist Steve Swell plays to the strengths of his talented cast of improvisers on the sprawling multifaceted Dances With Questions, a three-CD box set which documents his three day residency at the 2019 Krakow Jazz Autumn. The center piece is the 70-minute title cut for a dozen musicians, but the album also includes two discs of small group encounters captured in the city's legendary Alchemia club during the previous evenings.

Swell, a veteran of the New York scene, assembled a multinational squad. Of the twelve, some are regular collaborators, such as German reedman Gebhard Ullmann, who the trombonist has partnered many times, or Polish saxophonist Mikolaj Trzaska and Swedish tuba player Per-Åke Holmlander, comrades from Ken Vandermark's Resonance Ensemble and the quartet Inner Ear. Or like Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love, who Swell has joined in the bands of Peter Brötzmann and Frode Gjerstad, where bassist Jon Rune Strom also plies his trade. Others such as Portuguese violinist Carlos Zingaro, French cellist Elisabeth Cadoux, Norwegian trumpeter Niklas Brano and Belgian saxophonist Hanne De Backer are less familiar associates.

The title cut can be seen as a series of movements which frame a patchwork quilt of solos, duos and small groups. Swell's diverse composed elements (characteristically punchy riffs, monlithic unisons which serve to shift the mood from anarchic to austere, and tunes which variously evoke oriental pentatonics or South African highlife) separate less scripted events and demarcate progress, rather than feeding specific material to be extrapolated upon. Although, that said, pianist Elisabeth Harnik seems to use the intervals of the preceding jerky figures as a jumping off point for an initially staccato jaunt.

It can be difficult to distinguish between some of the saxophonists in the full congregation, especially when the instrumentation overlaps, but there is no such problem with the small group pieces, which are titled after the names of the participants involved. Each on-the-fly summit features a different foursome drawn from the overall ensemble. While some of the permutations tread water before inspiration hits (part of the creative process which can be one of the pleasures and frustrations of improv), there are more where the stars align straight away.

Established connections bear fruit, particularly between Swell and Ullmann who generate excitement whenever they coincide, notably on the opening "Ullmann Harnik Swell Strøm." Here and elsewhere, Swell once again affirms that he is one of the finest improvising trombonists, combining bold blurts, sustained notes which fizz, twist and ultimately plead, and waxing and waning drones, into an unpredictable mélange. Ullmann similarly marshals tonal variety to good effect; on bass clarinet he snorts and whimpers emotively, while being more forthright on tenor saxophone where he squalls and veers between the registers magisterially. The pair strike gold again on "Emmeluth Ullmann Swell Nilssen-Love" where, supplemented by the fiery alto saxophone of Signe Emmeluth, the bristling horns butt against driving drums.

Also of note, the baritone saxophone tandem of Trzaska and De Backer rampages at the start of a seething foot to the floor excursion on "Trzaska De Backer Harnik Nilssen-Love," while Brano's trumpet buzzes and darts incisively amid the jostling "Brano Zingaro Holmlander Nilssen-Love." With some of the shorter pieces, the danger is that they never get out of first gear, but the just-under-six-minute "Holmlander Harnik Trzaska Ullmann" proves an exception, with the pianist enjoying a typically knotty solo before a honeyed coming together at the end. Unfortunately the strings are undermiked compared to the horns and tend to suffer when heard in conjunction. At the end of the day, however, the three discs provide a wealth of stimulating playing sparked by unusual combinations, Swell's magnum opus being the biggest selling point.

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