Dejan Terzic' Underground : "Continuum"

(Gramofon, 2008)

This is the second CD of my work with "Underground" and its inspiration and interpretation of Balkan Folk music.
Wheras the first CD - Underground - deals more with interpreting folk songs and melodies, now this new piece of work is focused on original material. Apart from "Somborska", which has the original title "U tem Somboru" and is an old folk song that I have rearranged, I have written all the music on this CD.
By doing so, I was trying to capture the mood, the atmosphere and the "melos" of old folk songs, since this is the realm I am mostly occupied with. ("melos" in the sense of return to Romanticism, and "occupation" in the sense of Passion).
But what exactly is "melos" in the context of folk songs ? Most of the traditional folk songs are written in a minor key - people from the south region mostly prefer sad songs in minor keys,even if its out of pure joy and happiness.
Neither in folk dances nor in in wedding songs, the minor key - with its intonation of gravity and severity -seems to be inevitable. Even without grief there is always grief,even without wailing the mood is always elegic. Its emotional impact - chastity,joy,cry,laugh,desperation,hate,love - it all seems to be combined in those songs .
By using original material I was trying to present my own musical point of view. Continuum expresses my ongoing obsession and belonging to these musical roots, without its inspiration and impact, no creative activity would ever arise. Sombor was chosen out of pure love to the song - melody,rhythm,structure,lyrics - and without any national or geographical preference whatsoever.

Dejan Terzic

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Satoko Fujii : "Jo"

(Buzz, 1999)

Pianist Satoko Fujii has assembled a 15-piece band of intensely fierce improvisers from various sources, including NYC, Boston and Japan. Trumpeter Jack Walrath (ex-Charles Mingus), saxophonists Briggan Krauss and Chris Speed (Knitting Factory stable), trumpeter John Carlson and trombonist Curtis Hasselbring (Either/Orchestra), trumpeter Dave Ballou (Orange Then Blue, among others), trombonist Joey Sellers (a progressive big bandleader in his own right), and countrymen Stomu Takieshi (electric bass) and trumpeter Natsuki Tamura are part of this multi-national, multi-faceted avant-garde improvising unit. Fujii penned six of these eight pieces. "Jo" is apparently a midnight-dancing wolf, as depicted during the stalking title cut, brimming with counterpointed horn layers and a stealthy, slow 10/8 funk rhythm. Drummer Aaron Alexander solos, with Takieshi responding by his carnivorous lonesome. "Kyu" is free New Orleans-flavored funk-rock with urgent, kinetic lines, running dragster-fast over skittering, dodge-car improvisations, while calmer, echoing motifs and Kodo-like drum slams accent Tamura's "Okesa-Yansado," with a quite symphonic coda. The mournful elongated chart of the ballad "Reminiscence" leads to rubato horns pulsing in ghostly fashion. Fujii's voice is her ensemble, but you hear traces of her pianistic personality during the Tamura composition "Wakerasuka" — piano and percussion counterpoint trading places back and forth with sour, long horn tones, then combining forces, followed by group vocal outcries and a hard funk charge. Her inside-the-piano strings clattering inspires gossipy horns chattering amongst themselves for "Around the Corner," and the 13-minute "Sola" is slow-dirge funk, solemn and remorseful, quite mindful of a distinct Gil Evans approach. This is dense music with creative flourishes an occasional Oriental edge sewn in the fabric of richly textured writing and improvisation. Fujii has a unique concept, eluding hard definitions and parameters. Perhaps this is the opening salvo for what could be many expansive and intriguing works to come.

Michael G. Nastos (Allmusic)

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John Hollenbeck : "The Claudia quintet"

(CRI, 2001)

... In the Claudia Quintet's drum chair, John Hollenbeck often locks into a rhythm and gradually builds the intensity of his attack, taking his own sweet time to reach the dynamic peak in a piece of music. He also propels the music forward with a crisp and clean style that doesn't overwhelm his bandmates, including Chris Speed, the noted N.Y.C. reedman who tends to prefer subtle expressiveness over displays of high-volume bluster. On this debut CD by the band, Claudia pursues a cool after-hours chillout vibe much of the time, and the instrumentation should suggest what Hollenbeck is after: aside from Speed (contributing a bit of tenor sax in addition to clarinet), the quintet features vibraphonist Matt Moran, accordionist Ted Reichman, and ubiquitous upright bassist Drew Gress.
This lineup doesn't require listeners to stuff cotton in their ears to prevent hearing damage. The inclination is rather to pull out the cotton in order to best appreciate the clarity and nuance of this ensemble — the round tones of the clarinet, shimmer of the vibes, earthiness of the accordion, and deep resonance of the bass. All the instruments are afforded room to breath, as unembellished melodic lines and shifting harmonics are drawn out across the sure and steady pulse and gathering rhythmic energy of "Meinetwegen" and the first and third of the album's "Thursday" compositions. Modalism and momentum are traded for spacy atmospherics on the second "Thursday" piece, with its ringing and sustained tones courtesy of Moran's bowed and struck vibes. But don't think The Claudia Quintet is entirely a space cruise, as the album includes the lovely downtempo ballad "Love Song for Kate," the swinging tenor-driven "Burt and Ken," the nearly cacophonous riot of voices during the improvised middle section of "a-b-s-t-i-n-e-n-c-e," and the angular stop-and-start "No D," in which Reichman fires off a solo on accordion that sounds about as wild as one could get without breaking the thing. Auspicious debut, indeed. One senses that a new and important voice has emerged on the New York creative music scene.

Dave Lynch (All Music)

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Yeah No : "Swell Henry"

(Squealer, 2004)

There goes Chris Speed again, hogging the spotlight and never giving his bandmates any opportunities to shine. The preceding remark is intended as a joke. In actuality, Speed might be one of the least ego-driven jazzers around today, and if one measure of greatness in a creative musician is a demonstrated ability to bring out the best in his or her collaborators and unite them in a singular artistic conception, then Speed is indeed one helluva great creative musician. In fact, on Swell Henry, Speed's fourth CD leading his yeah NO quartet, the tenor saxophonist and clarinetist seems to have been fully absorbed into the band as a member equal to the others, although he wrote or co-wrote all but one of the recording's ten tracks. His name doesn't even appear on the outside of the CD booklet or back tray card; Swell Henry is presented as a recording by a group called yeah NO. And yet Speed's artistic persona comes through with full force, strength, and assurance on this release, even as the reedman steadfastly refuses to relegate his sidemen to the role of, well, mere sidemen. Speed's yeah NO bandmates — bassist Skuli Sverrisson, drummer Jim Black, and trumpeter Cuong Vu — are more akin to full partners in sculpting the group's overall sound, and are as committed to that sound as Speed himself. In fact, these days the likeminded musicians of yeah NO seem to be moving a bit closer to the sonics and spirit of Pachora, the Balkan/Mediterranean-themed quartet that also features Speed, Black, and Sverrisson. Pachora has no "leader" per se, and has continued to twist its traditional-inspired music into more forward-thinking shapes with each successive release. Meanwhile, the more open-formatted yeah NO appears to be headed in Pachora's direction, on Swell Henry often drawing inspiration from Balkan and Eastern European modes and combining the talents of all the participating musicians into a truly collaborative sound.
Given the uniformly high quality of the material here, it's nearly meaningless to single out highlights, but certainly deserving mention are "Last Beginning"'s slow and dramatic build to an anthemic, rockish bridge and solo tenor break; the freewheeling clarinet that dances over Black's crisply driving rhythm in "Born in the Air"; and the Speed/Vu spirited interplay over "Camper Giorno"'s mid-tempo vamp. Reminiscent of "Drifting" from Pachora's Astereotypical, the virtuosic Sverrisson's moody neo-classical "Cloud Stopper" further proves the bassist's skill as a composer of strikingly beautiful music. And the fiery quasi-fusion of "Flanked" and skittering free jazz of "He Has a Pair of Dice" are full-bodied demonstrations of the chops these guys possess. Throughout the disc, the plaintive and melancholy qualities of Speed's tenor phrasing and tone add both subtlety and emotional depth to even the most groove-oriented tunes, while Vu continues to perfect his explosive, distortion-laden crescendos. And adding warmth to the proceedings is the lovely accordion of guest Rob Burger on five tracks, while additional guest Jamie Saft contributes some Mellotron here and there that might have listeners of a certain age flashing back to Starless and Bible Black-era King Crimson, of all things.

Dave Lynch (All About Jazz)

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Hilmar Jensson : "Dofinn"

(Jazzis, 1995)

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Myra Melford : "The same river, twice"

(Gramavision, 1996)

Myra Melford's studies with avant-bop pianist Don Pullen and idiosyncratic jazz composer Henry Threadgill are reflected in the seamless combination of structure and free improvisation in both her writing and piano playing. Her only release on the Gramavision label, The Same River, Twice nicely exemplifies the mix with a selection of sprawling, exploratory numbers and shorter, more straightforward pieces. On relatively accessible cuts like "Bound Unbound" and "Changes I & II," Melford incorporates hints of boogie-woogie and soul into dense hard bop heads, providing plenty of room for a series of clever solo statements and boisterous unison stretches by members of her ensemble. Longer pieces like "Crush" and "The Large Ends the Way" are harder to penetrate, but repeated exposure reveals an ingenuous blend of frenetic, open-ended sections and slower, ethereal passages. The stellar backing is provided by trumpeter Dave Douglas, cellist Erik Friedlander, drummer Michael Sarin, and reed player Chris Speed. Melford's own impressive work at the piano finds her spanning the tumultuously free playing of Cecil Taylor and more blues-tinged, hard-bop keyboard terrain. A fine release by one of the brightest composers and players to appear on the jazz scene in the '90s.

Stephen Cook (All Music)

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