Rent Romus, Tatsuya Nakatani: Uplift

Venerable woodwind ace, composer and fierce improviser Rent Romus has long been a cornerstone of the West Coast's avant-garde jazz scene. Tatsuya Nakatani, a Japanese-born percussionist and sound artist, is renowned for his innovative approach, wielding an arsenal of drums, gongs and indigenous instruments. He often crafts visceral soundscapes that dance between silence and chaos. Together, on their collaborative album Uplift, these two sonic alchemists conjure a live-recorded odyssey at the Musicians Union Hall Local 6 in San Francisco, blending jazz, free improvisation and a touch of cosmic mischief.

Uplift is a musical expedition, an 11-track journey that feels like a spirited dialogue between two old friends who happen to speak in saxophone squalls and percussive thunderstorms. Recorded on October 1, 2023, as part of Outsound Presents' SIMM Series, the album captures the duo's unbridled chemistry. Romus commands an array of instruments—alto, C-melody, soprano and sopranino saxophones, alongside flutes, a squirrel call and bells—while Nakatani's percussive palette includes drums, gongs and an assortment of found objects. The result is a performance that swings from meditative restraint to ecstatic abandon, with a wink to the absurdity of trying to pin it all down.

The opening track, "An Offering," sets the tone with a delicate interplay of Romus' airy flute work and Nakatani's shimmering gongs and other implements. It is as if they are politely introducing their instruments before tossing decorum out the window, an act escalated by Romus' spiraling sax lines as the duo ups the ante in a rather huge way. With "Before Everything Turns to Ice," the artists dive into a frenetic exchange, Romus' saxophone skittering like a startled deer while Nakatani's drums and unidentified tools of the trade rumble with the urgency of an approaching storm. There is a delightful unpredictability here, as if the musicians are daring each other to leap into the void—and they do, repeatedly. "Swing Before the Water Falls" highlights their ability to balance structure and chaos, with Romus' melodic fragments serving as fleeting anchors amid Nakatani's percussive maelstrom.

Moments of silence are not mere pauses but active participants, pregnant with anticipation. This is heard in "Feel the Ground," where sparse saxophone notes float over Nakatani's tumbling drum patterns like fireflies in a desert night. However, "Swinging from Starlight" is a dazzling free-form improv workout.

Romus and Nakatani have crafted a work that is as much a philosophical statement as it is a musical one, a testament to the power of improvisation to transcend genre and expectation. For those who revel in the unexpected, it is a thrilling ride, like chasing a comet with a saxophone and a gong. It is not for the faint of heart, but for the bold of ear, it is a revelation.

Comments