Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Mike Reed's Loose Assembly Featuring Roscoe Mitchell: Em...

395

Mike Reed's Loose Assembly Featuring Roscoe Mitchell: Empathetic Parts

By

View read count
Mike Reed's Loose Assembly Featuring Roscoe Mitchell: Empathetic Parts
The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) has nurtured the talents of Chicago's most inventive artists since 1965. Drummer Mike Reed, the venerable organization's recently appointed Vice Chairman, repays the favor on Empathetic Parts, with his longstanding quintet, Loose Assembly, by welcoming one of the Association's original founders, multi-instrumentalist Roscoe Mitchell, as featured guest soloist.

A veteran organizer and concert promoter, Reed's affinity for collaborating with his elders is reflected in his budding discography. Trumpeter Art Hoyle, saxophonist Ira Sullivan and trombonist Adi Braun were featured prominently on Stories & Negotiations (482 Music, 2010), Reed's previous release with his quartet, People, Places & Things. His other flagship band, Loose Assembly, is firmly rooted in Chicago's avant-garde tradition, making this encounter with Mitchell an interesting counterpart to the aforementioned session.

The album is dominated by the lengthy title track, an episodic work structured around the concept of "collective arranging," in which Reed equally distributes responsibilities for controlled improvisation among his band members. Alternating between conductor and sideman, each member directs the ensemble in turn, using techniques Reed adapted from his peers, cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and trombonist Jeff Albert. Employing cues designed to ease transitions between sections, the piece segues gracefully between divergent moods, lending a naturalistic flow to the proceedings. Veering episodically from spare ruminations to coiled themes, the suite explores a plethora of moods over its 33-minute duration, from spectral pointillism and meditative ostinatos to fractious abstraction and vivacious swing, with copious space allotted for the guest soloist's contributions.

Indefatigable after more than four decades of unremitting experimentation, Mitchell continues to play havoc with conventional tonality, delivering trenchant essays in deconstruction that defy prescribed notions of embouchure, pitch and phrasing. Alto saxophonist Greg Ward proves an apt foil for Mitchell; his pneumatic intervals and bright tone provide a colorful contrast to the master's oblique, weathered impressionism. Reed's modulating rhythms are underpinned by Joshua Abrams' pliant bass and Jason Adasiewicz's effervescent vibraphone ruminations, with cellist Tomeka Reid adding sinuous detail.

Spotlighting the lyrical interplay of Mitchell and Ward's plangent altos, a lavish arrangement of late AACM drummer Steve McCall's "I'll Be Right Here Waiting" brings the concert to a close, serving as a gentle coda and a persuasive reminder of the Association's aesthetic diversity.

Mitchell's congenial rapport with Reed's young quintet establishes a historical continuum hearkening back to his early days as founder of the Art Ensemble Of Chicago, a seminal collective whose influence over this date is both undeniable and intentional. A cross-generational summit meeting between one of the organization's key founders and its newest heir, Empathetic Parts truly embodies the AACM's credo, Great Black Music, Ancient to the Future.

Track Listing

Empathetic Parts; I'll Be Right Here Waiting.

Personnel

Roscoe Mitchell: alto saxophone, soprano saxophone, flute; Greg Ward: alto saxophone; Tomeka Reid: cello; Jason Adasiewicz: vibraphone; Joshua Abrams: bass; Mike Reed: drums, percussion.

Album information

Title: Empathetic Parts | Year Released: 2010 | Record Label: 482 Music

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.