Anna Webber: simpletrio2000

Although the name of saxophonist and flautist Anna Webber's trio with pianist Matt Mitchell and drummer John Hollenbeck might suggest something easy to understand, there is nothing straightforward about their output. Notwithstanding the title, Simpletrio2000 constitutes the band's third release (or fourth if you include the first installment of the double discIdiom (Pi, 2021)), that arrives some ten years after the outfit's eponymous debut. Like much of Webber's work, the 11 cuts here are intricately plotted, even with only three instruments to track.

The Canadian reedist often uses an underlying idea as inspiration for her writing. As the liners reveal, here the generative tool was polyrhythms. But as the text also acknowledges, other factors may be equally if not more significant. And certainly rhythmic complexity has long been part of Webber's armory, as albums such as Clockwise (Pi, 2019)and Shimmer Wince (Intakt, 2023) attest. But such mischief holds no fears for collaborators as wily as Mitchell and Hollenbeck.

A dizzying talent, the pianist's own recordings often have reviewers scanning the Thesaurus for synonyms for "knotty." He proves just as capable of navigating the conundrums of others, spinning fiendish divergences from each hand in a bifurcated stream. Meanwhile, the drummer-composer is a master percussionist who likewise takes an orchestral approach, demarcating distinct strands through discrete elements of his kit. And whether nailing recurring figures to bolster the structural fabric or attacking unlikely tonalities, the leader achieves similarly astounding levels of precision.

Webber's robustly designed multi-sectioned constructs defy easy summary. She creates a volatile tapestry of lurching metrical layers which are not quite unisons but nor totally out of phase either. Nonetheless, blossoming among sharp-angled themes are moments of wayward feeling that undercut the cool abstract execution. For example, Webber's spiraling tenor saxophone bleats and skirls over the tumbling lock-step of "Idiom VII," then on "Foray" her flute oozes and flutters microtonally atop the foreboding drama, while Mitchell dazzles over the lightly etched staccato of "Slingsh0t."

Perhaps to offer the listener respite from such flighty machinations, Webber composed solo excursions for each player. She tends towards a sort of soured lyricism on the raw-boned tenor soliloquy of "Fixed Do." Hollenbeck demonstrates his exceptional control on the tuned and attenuated clatter of "Ch9tter," while Mitchell's feature "g equals GM over r squared" confounds by presenting the opposite of what you might anticipate from him, unfolding via a series of sustained pregnant chords with ringing overtones, at least to begin with before the inevitable digressions.

By this stage the threesome's chemistry is so ultra-refined that they make the realization of Webber's singular conception not only sound unforced, but more importantly, eminently satisfying.

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