Collin Sherman: Noir

Making music is most often a collaborative affair. Big bands, duos, trios, quartets and quintets—take your pick. Miles Davis (or any other of your favorites) calls his guys into the studio or to the stage where they bump elbows and trade riffs, drawing their individual personalities out to form a collection of sound waves to craft a finished work of art.

On the other hand, we have the solo outing. Alone at the piano, or with the guitar—or with almost any other instrument. And then we have the solo efforts that combine instruments via studio magic—loops and overdubs, each part played separately and then layered into a finished whole. This is what Collin Sherman does. He is primarily a multiple reedman, but his quiver also holds piano, cello, electronics and more. His early 2024 release, String Planes (Ex-Tol Records) featured him playing the electric guitar, 4-string bowed box guitar and a shruti box in addition to his reeds (review here). He has also employed—in his previous recordings—a Remington Model 1 Typewriter, a Pittsburgh Modular SV-1; a Soniccouture Canterbury Suitcase, a Doepfer Dark Energy II, an Arturia Minibrute, a Sonic Sector WaveStorm...

The list goes on—instruments with names strange enough to raise—in the layman's mind (ahem)—the suspicion that he is putting us on. But the odds are he is not. All information points to Sherman as a somewhat reclusive, possibly eccentric, talented and obsessive artist who holes in the living room of his New York City apartment where he records his distinctively off-the-beaten-path, consistently compelling music. Considering the instrument list, it must be a crowded living room.

So, with 2024's Noir, welcome again to Sherman's living room. In contrast to his previous work, Noir is sparsely instrumented, using just a Bb clarinet, electric cello and Soniccouture Hammersmith (midi piano). And throw in a shruti box on one track.

One inspiration for Noir is the work of American classical composer Morton Feldman, specifically Feldman's chamber ensemble pieces. As the making of the album progressed, the focus drifted away from the Feldman feeling, to become something of it own Sherman-esque entity

The music is cinematic—like a soundtrack to a movie based on a Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett novel. Sherman is painting sonic pictures of dim alleys at midnight, cold mist floating six inches off the ground, a black cat darting by, black water standing in the potholes, a monolithic dumpster looming in the background, a rat peeking up over its lid.

Spacious and eerie, the atmosphere has a sort of supernatural resonance, similar to that of Miles Davis Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (Fontana, 1958); and while much of Sherman's previous work could be labeled free jazz, Noir is something else—deeply-ruminative improvisational back-alley musings, perhaps. Excellent wee hours listening.