Dennis Gonz

Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Music (AACM) exemplar, and its southern roots, underlines the creativity of the combos on both these discs. Although only three of the nine players involved are AACM members — the late trumpeter Ameen Muhammad, bassist Malachi Favors and drummer Alvin Fielder — the cooperative archetype that the Chicago association feels must be mixed with creative improvised music is on show each time.

In Chicago is another CD that mixes Windy City players with members of the Asian Improv (AI) movement, a musical co-op inspired by the AACM. Old Time Revival features trumpeter Dennis González, whose organization Daagnim tries for a similar, AACM-like supportive role in the Dallas music scene, exploring the collective southern identity of himself, two AACMers and two saxophonists. The musicians are better-known on this disc, but In Chicago may have a slight edge, with organized arrangements on tap, rather than relying on solo luster as do many of Old Time Revival's tunes.

Case in point is "Centuries," the more-than-12-minute final live cut on the Chicago disc. Purportedly inspired by a traditional rhythm from p'ungmul or Korean folk drumming, it still sounds like jazz, especially when Muhammad, known for his membership in saxophonist Ernest Dawkins' bands, lets loose. Although you could link his brassy triplets to ceremonial heraldic trumpeting, it's likely that no traditional Korean musician on either side of the DMZ exhibits as many bent notes and plunger expositions as this Mississippi-born improviser. Soon he's adding jazz shakes and what could be piccolo-trumpet flourishes to his output. Chicagoan drummer Chad Taylor, who works in different bands featuring AACM guitarist Jeff Parker, offers up rim shots and a quivers from a tambourine lodged on his hi-hat, while carrying the beat on his ride cymbal.

San Francisco-based soprano and tenor saxophonist Jeff Chan, titular leader of the date, begins playing straight-ahead, but ends up elaborating the theme in split tones, displaying an exaggerated vibrato that advances to double tonguing. In one bow to orientalism, though, when Chan's line faces counterpoint from Muhammad, the instrument the trumpet chooses to use to reply is a conch shell, which in this context has the timbres of a Korean sho.

Besides South-Asian influences the other leitmotif on the CD is from another son of the South, Fort Worth, Tex.'s Ornette Coleman, with at least two of the tunes resembling the work of the Texas saxophonist's pioneering 1960s quartet. "Bells/Falling," written like all the compositions but one here by Chan, has a definite Coleman-like head, taken andante. Here and on at other places on the CD, the arrangements are held together by the steady bass pulse of Tatsu Aoki. An organizer par excellence, he's the link between AI and the AACM, working as bandleader or sideman with local luminaries like saxists Fred Anderson and Mwata Bowden. Composed by another AIer, Francis Wong, with whom Chan plays in the Saxophone Summit, "Persistence of Vision" has a tint of Imperial Chinese processional music about it. With a sandpaper tone vibrations the tenorist advances the theme that is then commented upon by Muhammad. His squealing continuum and Taylor's shimmering ride cymbal, plus ruffs and drags add an African element to the piece. Finally it downshifts before the end, its stately advance marked by deep bass line and guiro-like percussion scratches.

Unfortunately, Chan's soprano sax work doesn't measure up to his tenor sax playing or composing talents. On most of the tunes such as "Sunbeams," his lines, whether legato or staccato, lines appear pretty unsubstantial. This forces the compositions to gain color from Taylor's ride cymbal, Aoki's time-keeping bass and the scratching, whistles and bird calls [!] from Muhammad's little instruments.

In contrast there is plenty of multi-faceted reed playing exhibited on Old Time Revival. New Orleans resident Tim Green weighs in with his saxello, tenor and bass saxophones, while North Carolina-born, New York dweller Andrew Lamb brings his tenor saxophone. Rhythm section is made up of Malachi Favors, who since he left Lexington, Miss. many years ago has made his reputation with the Art Ensemble of Chicago, the Ritual Trio and numerous other bands in Chicago. Drummer Alvin Fielder, who is also a pharmacist, spent only a few years In Chicago in the 1960s, though he did participate in many AACM sessions. Back in Jackson, Miss., he's involved with most creative music ventures in the Deep South, usually involving AACM members, González and New Orleans saxophonist Kidd Jordan.

On this date, González, who is also a schoolteacher and a visual artist, appears to be so buoyed by the presence of so many exceptional musicians that he lets them solo to their heart's content. But a string of solos is only impressive in certain situations, as on the title track.

A fast, vamping blues based on an infectious line driven by the bass and drums, the composition begins with a trilling, irregular cadenza from Green's saxello, as the other horns riff in the background. His speedy solo is followed by strident triplets from González riding on the relentless rhythm of Fielder and Favors. Open-horned, the trumpeter then seems to be quoting spirituals, proving a gritty commentary on what he played previously. Then, as the horn riffing gets faster and faster until the end, a tenor saxophonist — likely Lamb — sounds out gospelly glossolalia, scooting up the scale and introducing multiphonic feints. "Hymn for Albert Ayler," González's devotional piece written for a man who definitely knew his old time religion, features intimations of "Go Down Moses" in the trumpet solo. Slurred affirmation comes from one of the tenormen and powerful bass strokes amplify this. Soon the tenorist expels an undulating Ayler-like cry, all guttural split tones, but with not as wide a vibrato as the deceased saxophonist exhibited. As the trumpeter tongues out an euphonious rubato trumpet solo that's closer to Coleman associate Don Cherry than anything Don Ayler ever played, Green's saxello produces sweeping bagpipe-like nasal, buzzing timbres. Propelled forward by the bassist and drummer, the piece ends with the brassman easing into gospel shouts again. Perhaps the most complicated tune is written by Fielder, who like all the players except Lamb is a longtime associate of the trumpeter.

His "Four Moods for Carol" appears to feature four-curlicue themes going at the same time. With the bass sax creating a snorting pedal point, the tenor contributes an irregular vibrato and the trumpeter blasts out a mellow chromatic line. Fielder then underscores the proceedings with oscillations from blustering wind chimes, log drum beats, the shimmers of a bell tree and the whistling draughts of an African whirl drum. Those percussion accessories may only be approximated, but he certainly internalized the AACM's skill with little instruments.

Listening to it and the other tunes on Old Time Revival give you the feeling that at least where jazz/improv is concerned, the South will rise again. Now all González has to do is to head into the studio with more focused arrangements to likely produce a session that's not only very good, but as outstanding as In Chicago.

Entropy Stereo on the web: www.entropystereo.com .
Asian Improv on the web: www.asianimprov.com .

In Chicago

Track Listing: 'Round and 'Round/ Persistence of Vision/ Sunbeams/ Bells/Falling/ Waiting/ Twilight/ Waiting (reprise)/ Centuries

Personnel: Ameen Muhammad- trumpet, conch shell, small percussion instruments; Jeff Chan- soprano and tenor saxophones; Tatsu Aoki- bass; Chad Taylor- percussion

Old Time Revival

Track Listing: The Matter at Hand/ Document for Charles Brackeen/ Hordes of the Morning Star/ Hymn for Albert Ayler/ Four Moods for Carol/ Old Time Revival

Personnel: Dennis González- C, Bb, pocket trumpets; Andrew Lamb- tenor saxophone; Tim Green- saxello, tenor and bass saxophones; Malachi Favors- bass; Alvin Fielder- drums

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