EDIT: I see a lot of people coming to this post from the US, so please scroll down to the comments for an imperfect but hopefully serviceable translation of the review.
Jazz Nedeljom je zamišljen kao serija vinjeta koje će ići (možda ne?) svake Nedelje, nudeći preporuku u vidu jednog jazz albuma koji sam tog dana slušao. Ovo nema pretenziju da bude ni ultimativni prikaz neke klasične ploče niti otkrivanje nekog budućeg klasika, već zaista samo to, da se kažu reč-dve o albumu koji sam tog dana rado slušao. Ponekada će to biti stare, proverene klasične stvari, ponekada najnovije izdanje koje sam izvalio na Bandcampu, hoću reći, neće biti pravila. Kako i treba. Kako i mora.
Ova Nedelja je, sa najavom vrelog leta u kome ćemo sigurno primetiti da struje nema daleko pre nego što dođe vreme da se u zimu na nju – koje tada takođe neće biti – grejemo, ova je Nedelja, dakle, svojim prolećnim zamahom idealna da se glavačke bacimo u kovitlac furioznog filadelfijskog free jazza i podsetimo se koliko je istinski oslobađajuće kada izvrsni muzičari sviraju bez plana i programa, samo slušajući jedni druge i, možda i važnije, slušajući sebe, ali onako dubinski.
„Free jazz, Mehmete“, kažete vi prekrštajući ruke pomalo prkosno, „opet? Pa to si nam već servirao onoliko puta! Kad ćeš već jednom malo da progovoriš o levičarskim pokretima iz zapadne Evrope koji su pljačkali banke da bi doturali novac revolucionarnim, oslobodilačkim pokretima na drugim krajevima sveta? KAD, MEHMETE?“
E, pa, dragi moji… Nećete verovati, ali…
Dennis / McKain / Murray / Sullivan: Blekingegade je, da budemo odmah jasni, album žustrih džez improvizacija izašao u materijalnoj formi januara ove godine ali je meni uleteo na radar tokom prošle nedelje kada ga je izdavač, Niu Niu Press nakon inicijalnog kasetnog izdanja privoleo na Bandcamp. Već to da je originalna opipljiva forma ovog izdanja bila muzička kaseta koju je izdao mali tajvanski izdavač sugeriše da se radi o partizanskoj avangardi, radu šačice entuzijasta koji su samo na korak ili dva udaljeni od prosvećenog amaterizma, ali molim da cenjeno čitateljstvo sebi ne dopusti da bude zavarano low key formatom u kome se ova muzika publikuje. Blekingegade nije samo kvalitetno snimljen i produciran materijal, već je u pitanju jedna od najmoćnijih free jazz ploča koje sam čuo u poslednjih nekoliko meseci i apsolutna preporuka za svakoga ko oseća potrebu da ponekad nag ušeta u centar tornada žileta i oseti kako mu zajedno sa telesnom disocijacijom naglo raste potencijal za totalnu konekciju sa univerzumom.
Dobro, free jazz je svakako unazad mnogo decenija imao transcendentalne ambicije, pogotovo sa radom njujorških autora poput Johna Coltranea i Alberta Aylera čije su muzičke eksploracije u velikoj meri bile nadahnute religioznim vizijama i tragalačkim duhom za spiritualnim otkrovenjima. U kontrastu sa njima, „belački“ free jazz, ako smem da uopšte ovako generalizujem, je često imao naglašenije „materijalnu“ komponentu. Ne da u njemu nije bilo transcendencije, ali fakat je da su makar moji omiljeni autori sa manjkom melanina u free jazz ogranku popularne muzike najčešće eksplicitnije bili inspirisani sociopolitičkim opservacijama i kritičkim diskursom nego verskim zanosom i da je njihova muzika manje frekventno bila obraćanje božanskom (ili govor o božanskom) a frekventnije kontemplacija o materijalnoj, opipljivoj nepravdi i težini života, ili poziv na akciju u ovoj, zemaljskoj ravni.
Sve ovo pišem jer uz ovaj album ide i objašnjenje da se radi o „gorućoj neidealističkoj improvizaciji iz Filadelfije“ što bi donekle i delovalo kao uverljiv opis – na kraju krajeva ima dosta improvizovane muzike koja programski nastaje na bazi ispražnjenog uma i duha, bez plana, programa, emocije, često čak i bez razmišljanja, kako bi bila potpuno „čista“ – samo da se album ne zove, jelte, Blekingegade.
Sedamdesete godine su, pokazalo se bile jedna od najluđih decenija u dvadesetom veku a svakako prelomni period u zapadnoj kulturi sa konačnim penzionisanjem generacija koje su najviše radile u Drugom svetskom ratu, mutiranjem levičarskih ideja u smeru poststrukturalističkog, postmodernog diskursa i, paralelno, mutiranjem levičarskog aktivizma u smeru terorizma. Italija je imala Crvene brigade, Nemačka Frakciju Crvene armije a Danska, pa Danska je imala „bandu iz ulice Blekinge“. Banda Blekingegade nije imala direktne terorističke akcije, ali jeste bila posvećena profesionalnom, metodičnom pljačkanju banaka kako bi se novac iskoristio za političke ciljeve. Zasnovana na lenjinističkim i maoističkim principima, ova grupa delala je od šezdesetih godina kao otcepljena ćelija Danske komunističke partije, koja se (partija) u velikom raskolu između SSSR i Kine svrstala uz Hruščova. Gotfred Appel je, smatrajući da je ovo izdaja izvornih markističkih principa osnovao KAK – komunističku operativnu grupu koja je naginjala lenjinističkim i maoističkim tumačenjima Marksa pa je posle izbacivanja iz partije predvodio aktivističke i zagovaračke aktivnosti ove svoje grupe. Smatrajući da zapadni svet u ogromnoj meri eksploatiše istok, ovaj je kolektiv posle publikovanja različitog materijala i demonstriranja na ulicama prešao na konkretne akcije pljački banaka, od 1973. godine šaljući sav na taj način sakupljen novac Narodnom frontu za oslobođenje Palestine, drugoj po veličini organizaciji u sastavu PLO ali prvoj po vernosti lenjinističkim učenjima. KAK i njegovo omladinsko krilo, KUF je tokom narednih par decenija najviše radio u ovom polju, smanjujući javni aktivizam praktično na nulu, sa članovima koji su bili veoma posvećeni pažljivom planiranju i žrtvovanju velikog dela svog života ovom cilju, dok njihove porodice i prijatelji nisu znali ništa.
Kako onda napravite „neidealističku improvizaciju“ od ovakvog materijala? Ne znam, ali James McKain, saksofonista koji predvodi ansambl na ovom izdanju sebe naziva „saksofonistom i nadrealistom“ pa je možda to ključ do tumačenja celog projekta. Pres riliz koji ide iz ovu ploču kaže da muzika „oživljava sumorne danske ulice iz sedamdesetih“ a onda slušalac „oseti nasilje, a zatim osećaj zajedništva“ i mada ne tvrdim da čujem tu sumornost i danski urbani mizanscen, ovo je nesumnjivo silovita ploča koja apsolutno kanališe taj osećaj zajedništva u kom četvorica improvizatora rade kao jedan, komuniciraju na kvantnom nivou i izbacuju ego iz jednačine ne bi li proizveli muziku za koju nisu ni znali da je u njima. Ako je za ikakvu utehu, ni sam James McKain nema pojma šta bi bila neidalistička improvizacija. Kada sam ga pitao da pojasni ovaj opis, čovek je slegao ramenima i rekao da je ovo smislio Joseph Mauro, šef Niu Niu Pressa. Pošteno.
McKain je prilično zaposlen tenorista na filadelfijskoj i njujorškoj sceni, sa dosta albuma i nastupa iza sebe u različitim postavama, ali uglavnom sa oslanjanjem na mišićavu, snažnu i, da, silovitu džez-osnovu. Pošto po internetu ima iznenađujuće malo informacija o njemu, s obzirom o kako se furioznom saksofonisti radi, morao sam malo da ga gnjavim sa pitanjima i saznao sam da je čovek aktivan već nepune tri decenije, sa biografijom koja ga je iz rodnog ruralnog Ilinoisa vodila kroz Njujork, Filadelfiju, Čikago i Sent Luis. Poreklom iz, kako kaže „odlučno radničke klase“, McKain je studirao muziku, filozofiju i istoriju na koledžu i bavio se muzikom u okvirima DIY scene još od trinaeste godine. Naravno, taj levičarski element u njegovoj muzici se mogao naslutiti i iz samog imena ovog albuma, a kada sam ga zamolio da pojasni interesovanje za tematiku oko koje je sklopljen ovaj materijal, McKain je rekao da je mnogo onoga što je studirao na koledžu bilo vezano za prijem Marksizma i Lenjinizma u dvadesetom veku i da sebe smatra Marksistom. Naravno, osetilo se odmah da je u pitanju srodna duša. McKainovi muzički uzori ubrajaju Petera Brotzmanna, Kaorua Abea, Ornettea Colemana, Jimmyja Lyonsa i Mikea Forbesa a kada sam ja nastavio da ga smaram insistirajući da čujem i dosta Alberta Aylera u njegovoj svirci, on se složio pa dodao i da mu je Saga of the Outlaws Charlesa Tylera omiljeni loft jazz album svih vremena, da vredi pomenuti i Roscoea Mitchella, Hamietta Bluietta i „milion drugih“. U najmanju ruku, dakle, pričamo o čoveku sa SAVRŠENIM muzičkim ukusom.
Čest saradnik mu je bubnjar Kevin Murray, koji svira i na ovom albumu a u pitanju je talentovan, veoma mlad muzičar (koji između ostalog i sam svira i saksofon) što je za malo više od dve decenije života uspeo da upiše saradnje sa ogromnim brojem njujorških džezera, uključujući i takve teškaše kao što su Joe Morris, William Winant ili sam William Parker. Drugi set bubnjeva svira Joey Sullivan, još jedan mladi ali veoma talentovani udarač, diplomac džez programa Univerziteta Temple i bubnjar u bendu Bark Culture. Sullivan je, pored aktivnog sviranja u raznim improv postavama i vredan organizator mnogih muzičkih događanja na istočnoj obali, a svira i u drugim bendovima kao što je alt-country postava Florry. Kontrabas, pak, svira Pete Dennis, dugokosi lik sa veoma zanimljivom solo diskografijom koju možete proveriti ovde. Dennisova muzika se kreće od eksperimentalnog, apstraktnog programa – pogotovo u okviru njegovog projekta Search for the Infinite Light u kome povremeno svira i Sullivan – pa do interpretacija gospel i narodnih pesama na kontrabasu kao na ovogodišnjem albumu pastē.
Iako Blekingegade formalno ima dve kompozicije, ovo je podela koja je verovatno napravljena samo da bi se snimak spakovao na dve strane kasete. Radi se, rekao bih, pre o jednoj neprekinutoj improvizaciji od četrdeset minuta koja ima nekoliko mesta na kojima ansambl „završava“ celinu samo da bi par trenutaka kasnije nastavio sa presingom, a sve je urađeno u studiju Seizures Palace Decembra 2020. godine. Što znači da ovde dobijamo skoro idealan album na kome je free muzika urađena u studijskom kvalitetu ali na kome bend svira žustro, udarnički i bez stajanja, nudeći nam dugačke, urnebesne improvizacije.
Nisam siguran ni od koga bih počeo jer su svi muzičari na ovoj ploči veoma dobri, no McKain nekako po prirodi stvari diktira veliki deo senzibiliteta ovog albuma. Obdaren veoma jakom kondicijom i plućima koja vazduh mogu da izguravaju zastrašujućom silinom, McKain je neka vrsta svetionika koji ceo sastav vodi kroz ovaj muzički program. Iako se ovde govori o „improv“ muzici, istina je i da ovo nije neidiomatska, apstraktna improvizacija već ipak muzika utemeljena u tradiciji free jazza i odsvirana bez ikakvih kalkulacija i premišljanja o tome kako se ona u ovu tradiciju uklapa. McKain sam svira prepoznatljivo u stilu istočne obale, sa zvukom, tehnikom i energijom što spajaju Njujork, Filadelfiju i Čikago ili, ako ćemo da pričamo o imenima, mislim da je fer reći da je njegovo sviranje tenor saksofona vrlo očigledno u aylerovskom ključu visoke brizantnosti, ogromne energije ali i emotivnosti i zanesenosti. Naravno, nema ovde nužno Aylerovih religioznih uzleta, ali iako McKaina možemo porediti sa Peterom Brotzmannom, po meri distorzije i hrapave teksture koje pušta u svoju muziku, a onda i po tome kako mu dobro ide sviranje u visokim registrima koje saksofon ne može da izvuče putem „normalne“ svirke, mislim da se on nalazi na nekoj srećnoj sredini između ove dvojice velikih prethodnika sa liričnošću kojoj dopušta da se prikrade u muziku a koja me je malo podsetila na Kena Vandermarka.
Sa svoje strane, Pete Dennis, kao jedini drugi član ansambla kadar da proizvede prave tonove, mora mu biti prirodni sparing partner i na nekoliko mesta imamo vrlo dobro odrađene međuigre saksofona i kontrabasa sviranog gudalom gde dvojica muzičara jedan drugom ne toliko dobacuju fraze, koliko upoređuju teksture i kruže jedan oko drugog kao da ne znaju da li da se poljube ili da se potuku. No, Dennis je i inače vrlo agilan u ovoj kompoziciji dajući zvuku inače sastavljenom od saksofonskih vrisaka i kiše udaraca malo topline i ponavljajućih tema, ali i ugodne harmonske pustolovnosti.
Bubnjari, naravno, prave najviše haosa ali pitanje je i da li prave najviše buke. Mene, možda je i nepotrebno naglasiti, ekstremno lože free jazz sastavi u kojima sviraju dva bubnjara. Od Coltraneovog Meditations preko Thurston Mooreovog Piece for Jetsun Dolma (na kome svira, sećamo se i pomenuti William Winant) pa do albuma The Sign of Four gde Pat Metheney i Derek Bailey sparinguju sa Paulom Werticom i Greggom Bendianom, postave sa dva bubnjara u kojima se svira slobodno često umeju da proizvedu toliko moćnog zvuka da se moj mozak oseti srećno preplavljenim. Murray i Sullivan bez greške postižu upravo ovaj efekat, ulećući u prvu kompoziciju, Mass Line, As Explained By a Puppet sa jedno dvesta na sat i praktično ne skidajući nogu sa gasa sve do kraja. A opet, ovo ne da nije puki zid buke već, naprotiv, udaraljke imaju finu višeslojnost, kompleksnu strukturu i dvojica perkusionista vrlo pažljivo rade u omeđenim zvučnim prostorima, svirajući puno manjih delova seta i odvojenih metalnih i drvenih predmeta da nam daju gustu ali prozračnu teksturu.
Pritom, iako se album gotovo sve vreme svira visokim intenzitetom, ovde nema mehaničkog udaranja i hvatanja na buku. Blekingegade je ploča koja fascinira time da urnebesnu brzinu i ogromnu snagu koje demonstrira uvek kontroliše tako da muzika teče smisleno, dosledno, prirodno, bez stajanja da se podvuče crta ili praznih hodova da se malo razmisli kuda dalje, ali i sa značajnim varijacijama u volumenu i raspoloženju.
Možda je tu McKain presudan faktor jer njegov moćni, himnični tenor saksofon (i bas klarinet) začas iz zverskog, rafalnog štektanja pređe u lepu, distorziranu i izuvijanu ali lepu melodiju koja bend odvodi u pravom smeru kad god zapreti momenat pada intenziteta ili emocije. Ritam sekcija, da se razumemo, vrlo dobro svira i kada nema saksofona u miksu, ali ovo su decidno apstraktniji momenti i McKain zaista muzici na albumu daje konačno usmerenje i senzibilitet. Dva su primera, na drugoj kompiziciji, Anya’s Antique Store gde saksofonista pokazuje koliko je bitno njegovo usmeravanje benda, u jednom momentu svodeći svoju muziku na praktično telegrafski prenos informacija Morzeovom azbukom dok ostatak orkestra pažljivo prati fabulu, u drugom ostavljajući trojicu ritmičara da jedno vreme sviraju sami a onda, kada oni izgrade fantastični apstraktni svet zvuka i udara, uđe sa najviše aylerovskom temom na ploči dajući nam nekoliko minuta uzvišene, duševne muzike lepih tema i emotivne izvedbe. Impresivno je, da podvučem, kako saksofonista čitav ansambl sve vreme drži u modu visokog intenziteta, sa varijacijama koje ne deluju kao mesta za odmor već samo hvatanja zaleta za nova krešenda, a da sve to i dalje zvuči jako prirodno, kao da su ove dve kompozicije uvežbavane nedeljama.
A nisu, mislim, ovde nema ni jedne unapred pripremljene teme, i himničnost McKainove svirke je tako moćna jer je autentična, očigledno kreirana in situ, oslonjena na nesvesno i podsvesno, ranjiva u svojoj snazi i snažna u svojoj emotivnosti. Kao neko ko sluša dosta free jazza i slobodne improvizacije uvek se praktično do suza obradujem kada naletim na muzičare koji ne moraju ništa da objašnjavaju, koji ništa, čini se, ni ne razmišljaju već se samo otvore i iz njih pokulja veličanstvena muzika. Ova četiri momka su sa ovim albumom kreirala praktično školski primer izvrsne free jazz ploče, belešku svirke koja je istovremeno i apstraktna, ne, jelte, idealistička, ali i emotivna i idejno usmerena na jedan veoma zreo način. Da smo imali sreće da se to desilo pred mikrofonima i da je neko to posle ovako solidno izmiksovao je praktično blagoslov. Slušajte:
Here’s a clumsy translation for Engglish speaking readers:
This Sunday is, with the announcement of a hot summer in which we will surely notice power shortages long before the harsh winter comes – when we will also notice power shortages – this Sunday, then, with its spring-swing is an ideal opportunity to throw ourselves into the whirlpool of furious Philadelphia free jazz and remind ourselves how truly liberating it is when great musicians play without a plan, without a program, just listening to each other and, perhaps more importantly, listening to themselves. Like, really listening.
„Free jazz, Mehmet,“ you say, crossing your arms a little defiantly, „again? How many servings have we already had? When are we going to get you to talk about, I don’t know, left-wing movements from Western Europe that robbed banks in order to supply money to revolutionary, liberation movements in other parts of the world? WHEN, MEHMET? ”
Well, my darlings… You may not believe this, but …
Dennis / McKain / Murray / Sullivan: Blekingegade is, to be clear, an album of lively jazz improvisations published in tangible form in January this year, but it hit my radar last week when the publisher, Niu Niu Press, following the initial cassette tape release, also released it on Bandcamp. The fact that the original physical form of this album was a cassette tape released by a small Taiwanese publisher suggests a guerrilla project, an avant-garde artefact, the work of a handful of enthusiasts who are only a step or two away from being mere enlightened amateurs, but please, esteemed reader, don’t allow the low key format in which this music is published to fool you. Blekingegade is not only a well recorded and well produced piece of musical material, but it is one of the most powerful free jazz records I have heard in the last few months and an absolute recommendation for anyone who sometimes feels the need to walk naked into the eye of a tornado of razors and, alongside his or hers bodily dissociation, feel the capacity for total connection with the universe growing rapidly.
Free jazz has certainly had transcendental ambitions for many decades, especially with the work of New York authors like John Coltrane and Albert Ayler whose musical explorations were largely inspired by religious visions and a search for spiritual revelations. In contrast, „white“ free jazz, if I may be so bold to generalize like this, often had a more pronounced „materialist“ component. Not that there was no transcendence in it, but the fact is that at least my favourite melanin-deficient authors in the free jazz branch of popular music were often more explicitly inspired by sociopolitical observations and critical discourse than religious enthusiasm and that their music was less frequently an address to the divine (or even just talk about the divine) and more often a contemplation about tangible, material injustice, about the hardships of life, or a call to action on this earthly plane.
I am writing all this because this album is accompanied by an explanation that it is a „burning non-idealistic improv from Philadelphia“ which would sound like a somewhat convincing description – after all, a lot of improvised music is programmatically made on the basis of emptied mind and spirit, without a plan, programme, emotion, often even without thinking, just so it is completely „pure“ – if the album just wasn’t entitled, you know, Blekingegade.
The 1970s proved to be one of the craziest decades of the twentieth century and certainly a turning point in Western culture with the final retirement of the generations who worked hardest in World War II, mutation of leftist ideas towards poststructuralist, postmodern discourse and, at the same time, mutation of leftist activism towards, well, terrorism. Italy had the Red Brigades, Germany the Red Army Faction and Denmark, well Denmark had the „Blekinge Street Gang“. The Blekingegade gang did not really perform terrorist actions, but it was committed to professional, methodical robbery of banks in order to use the money for political purposes. Based on Leninist and Maoist principles, this group has operated since the 1960s as a breakaway cell of the Danish Communist Party, which (the party) sided with Khrushchev in the great schism between the USSR and China. Gottfred Appel, believing that this was a betrayal of the original Marxist principles, founded KAK – a communist task force that leaned towards Leninist and Maoist interpretations of Marx, and after his expulsion from the party he led the activist and advocacy activities of this group. Postulating that the Western world was greatly exploiting the East, this collective, after publishing various writings and demonstrating in the streets, since 1973 switched to direct action: bank robberies and sending all the money collected this way to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the second largest organization within PLO, but the leading one when it came to fidelity to Leninist teachings. KAK and its youth wing, KUF would go on to perform this sort of work over the next few decades, reducing public activism to virtually zero, with members who were very committed to carefully planning the robberies and sacrificing much of their lives to this goal, all the while their families and friends being blissfully unaware.
So how do you make a „non-idealist improvisation“ out of this kind of material? I don’t know, but James McKain, the saxophonist who leads the ensemble on this record, calls himself a „saxophonist and surrealist“, so maybe that’s the key to interpreting the whole project. The press release from this publisher says that the music “ will bring you to those bleak streets of 1970’s Denmark“ and then the listener will „feel the violence, then a feeling of community“ and although I do not claim to hear all that bleakness and the Danish urban mise-en-scene, this is undoubtedly a powerful, even violent record that absolutely channels that sense of community where four improvisers work as one, communicate on a quantum level, and absolutely kick the ego out of the equation to produce music they didn’t even know resided in them. If there is any consolation, even James McKain himself has no idea what non-idealistic improvisation would be. When I asked him to clarify this description, the man shrugged and said that this was devised by Joseph Mauro, head of the Niu Niu Press. Fair.
McKain is a fairly busy tenorist on the Philadelphia and New York scenes, with plenty of albums and performances in his CV in various lineups, but most of them built on a muscular, strong and, yes, somewhat violent jazz basis. Since there is surprisingly little information about him on the Internet, considering how fiery saxophone playing tends to be, I had to do the legwork and ask him questions. I found out that the man has been active for almost three decades, starting in his native Illinois, then moving through New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and St. Louis. Hailing from what he calls a „resolutely working class“ background, McKain studied music, philosophy and history in college and has been involved in music within the DIY scene since the age of thirteen. Of course, that leftist element in his music could be inferred from the very name of this album, and when I asked him to clarify his interest in the subject matter of this material, McKain said that much of what he studied in college was related to reception of Marxism and Leninism in the twentieth century and that he considers himself a Marxist. I mean, of course, I could immediately tell the man was a kindred spirit. McKain’s musical influences include Peter Brotzmann, Kaoru Abe, Ornette Coleman, Jimmy Lyons and Mike Forbes, and when I continued to annoy him by insisting on hearing a lot of Albert Ayler in his playing style, he agreed and added that Charles Tyler’s Saga of the Outlaws is his favourite loft jazz album of all time, then proceeded to mention Roscoe Mitchell, Hamiett Bluiett and „a million others“. At the very least, then, we are talking about a man with PERFECT taste in music.
His frequent collaborator is a drummer called Kevin Murray, who also plays on this album, and he is a talented, very young musician (who also plays the saxophone), who in a little over two decades of being alive managed to collaborate with a huge number of New York jazz musicians, including such heavyweights as Joe Morris, William Winant, and William Parker himself. The second set of drums is played by Joey Sullivan, another young but very talented drummer, a graduate of the Temple University jazz program and a drummer in the band Bark Culture. In addition to active playing in various improv ensembles, Sullivan is a diligent organizer of many music events on the East Coast, and he also plays in other bands such as the alt-country band Florry. The double bass, on the other hand, is played by Pete Dennis, a long-haired dude with a very interesting solo discography that you can check out here. Dennis’ music ranges from experimental, abstract program – especially as part of his project Search for the Infinite Light, in which Sullivan occasionally plays – to interpretations of gospel and folk songs on double bass as on this year’s album pastē.
Although Blekingegade formally has two compositions, this is a division that was probably made just to pack the recording on two sides of the cassette tape. Rather, as it sound to these ears, this is an uninterrupted forty-minute improvisation that has several places where the ensemble „finishes“ one section only to recommence the assault mere moments later, and everything was recorded in the Seizures Palace studio in December 2020. Which means that here we get an almost ideal album wherein free music is done in studio quality, but where the band plays briskly, percussively and without stopping, bringing us long, outrageous improvisations.
I’m not even sure where to begin since all the musicians on this record are very good, but McKain somehow by the nature of things dictates much of the sensibility of this album. Blessed with high stamina and a set of lungs that can push the air out with terrifying force, McKain is a sort of a lighthouse that guides the whole band through the music. Although we are talking about „improv“ here, it is also true that this is not non-idiomatic, abstract improvisation, but music based on the tradition of free jazz and played without any calculations and reflections on how it fits into this tradition. McKain himself plays distinctively in the East Coast style, with the sound, technique and energy that unite New York, Philadelphia and Chicago or, if we need to talk about names, I think it’s fair to say that his tenor saxophone playing is very obviously in the Albert Ayler style of high flammability, tremendous energy but also emotion and a little bit of ecstasy. Of course, I’m not necessarily saying you’ll hear Ayler’s religious ascensions here, but while McKain can be compared to Peter Brotzmann, in terms of the distortion and rough texture he loves to push in his music, and then in how well he plays in high registers that a saxophone can’t quite reach through „normal“ playing technique, I think he occupies perfect middle ground between these two great predecessors with lyricism that he sometimes allows to sneak into the music which reminds me a little of Ken Vandermark.
For his part, Pete Dennis, as the only other member of the ensemble capable of producing true tones, serves as the natural sparring partner and there are several very well done interludes of saxophone and double bass played with a bow where two musicians throw phrases and textures at each other and then circle around as if they aren’t sure whether to kiss or get into a fistfight. But Dennis is generally very agile in this composition, giving the overall sound, otherwise composed of saxophone screams and a hail of metal, some warmth, some recurring themes, but also pleasant adventures in harmony.
Drummers, of course, create the most chaos, but whether they make the biggest noise is up for a debate. It may be unnecessary to emphasize that, if we are talking about me, I get extremely excited about free jazz bands with two drummers. From Coltrane’s Meditations to Thurston Moore’s Piece for Jetsun Dolma (featuring the abovementioned William Winant) to The Sign of Four, where Pat Metheney and Derek Bailey spar with Paul Wertico and Gregg Bendian, the line up with two drummers playing freely often produces such a powerful sound that my brain feels happily overwhelmed. Murray and Sullivan achieve this effect almost without trying, entering the first composition, Mass Line, As Explained By a Puppet at approximately two hundred kilometres per hour and practically not taking their foot off the gas until the end. And yet, this is not a mere wall of noise but, on the contrary, percussion has a fine multi-layered, complex structure and two percussionists work very carefully in limited sound spaces, playing many smaller parts of the set and separate metal and wooden objects to give us a dense but airy texture. .
At the same time, although the album is played with high intensity almost all the time, this is not just an attempt to “noise” the listener into submission. Blekingegade is a record that fascinates by always demonstrating high control of the outrageous speed and enormous power of the playing so that the music flows meaningfully, consistently, naturally, without stopping to look around or think about how to proceed, but with significant variations in volume and mood.
Maybe McKain is the deciding factor here because his powerful, anthemic tenor saxophone (and bass clarinet) instantly shifts from a beastly burst of barbs to a beautiful, distorted and twisted, but beautiful melody that takes the band in the right direction whenever a moment of indecision related to intensity or emotion looms. The rhythm section, let’s be clear, plays very well even when there is no saxophone in the mix, but these are definitely more abstract moments and McKain really gives the music on the album the final direction and outlook. There are two examples, in the second composition, Anya’s Antique Store where the saxophonist shows how important his direction of the band is, at one point reducing his music to essentially a telegraphic transmission of information in Morse code while the rest of the orchestra carefully follows the plot, at another leaving three rhythm players alone and then, when they build a fantastic abstract world of sound and percussion, he reenters with the most Aylerian theme on the record giving us a few minutes of sublime, soulful music of beautiful themes and emotional performance. I want to underline how impressed I am by the saxophonist keeping the whole ensemble in high intensity mode all the time, with variations that do not act as places to rest but only to catch the momentum for new crescendos, and that it still sounds very natural, as if these two compositions were rehearsed for weeks.
And they were not, I mean, there are no rehearsed themes on this record, and the anthemic quality of McKain’s playing is so powerful because it is authentic, obviously created in situ, based on the unconscious and subconscious, vulnerable in its strength and strong in its emotion. As someone who listens to a lot of free jazz and free improvisations, I am always practically driven to tears when I come across musicians who don’t have to explain anything, who don’t seem to think about anything, who just open up and great music gushes out. With this album, these four guys created a textbook example of an excellent free jazz record, a record of a playdate, at the same time abstract, not, you know, idealistic, but also emotional, with its ideas focused in a very mature way. That we were lucky that it happened in front of microphones and that someone did such a great mixdown, well, that is practically a blessing. Listen to it:
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