Keefe Jackson / Raoul van der Weide / Frank Rosaly: Live at de Tanker

It is a fair conjecture to assume the axis of this recording is Frank Rosaly. The Puerto Rican drummer who caught jazz and improvised music listeners' attention during his years in Chicago now makes The Netherlands his home. Live At de Tanker connects Rosaly with his past, Chicagoan saxophonist Keefe Jackson and his present, Dutch bassist Raoul van der Weide.

This live date from Amsterdam in 2022 is free, easy, and unconstrained. The six tracks flow one into another without pause or better said, without hesitation. The reason may be Rosaly and Jackson's longtime association in the Chicago Luzern Exchange, Fast Citizens, Project Project, the Pandelis Karayorgis Quintet, and projects too many to detail. That plus, van der Weide's flexible sound. He has recorded with Rosaly, Burton Greene, John Dikeman, and Roy Campbell.

Opening with a conventional tenor saxophone, bass, and drums composition, "Oh Time Thy Pyramids," Jackson pulls notes from the bottom of his horn, while van der Weide pulls deep resonating notes, and Rosaly's is busy swarming sticks and fingers on cymbals and pads. As the live set progresses, so does the experimentation. "Going And Caught, Together" finds van der Weide adding a cracklebox, the noise-generating electric contact device. This frees the sound up, encouraging solo flights from each musician. Jackson switches to bass clarinet to duo with Rosaly, and when van der Weide rejoins, he applies an old-school slap bass sound. Rosaly's solo segues into the brooding bowed bass "Cruel is Kept Close," next Jackson's lament "A Moating," dressed in cymbal wash, percussive explorations and angular tones. Rosaly's solo on "Razzle Dazzle Doo What" lays out a loose-jointed New Orleans groove for van der Weide to tap along to while Jackson exorcises more sound from his bass clarinet. "Straight Into the Wall" closes out the set, Jackson back to his tenor as the trio chases down a muscular ending.

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