Jason Kao Hwang and Burning Bridge's Blood

"Driving down on an unlit highway, my headlights flashed upon the bleeding carcass of a deer."

So begins the liner notes of Jason Kao Hwang's new album, Blood. Whenever I see Hwang's name attached to a musical project, I know it's going to be a challenge, I know it's going to be out there. Hwang, an avant-garde violinist, has crossed my path before with Sing House, which prompted me to conclude that "I'm still working on it. One day I may work it out in my mind, or I might just go back to my Dean Martin, Julie London and Harry Belafonte albums." He also performed on Michael Moss' Heli, a free jazz fever dream that I called "a daunting task, especially when you consider that most mainstream jazz fans might night make it through to the end."

Blood, performed with the Burning Bridge ensemble, starts off just as jagged, a series of sonic blasts and noises created by an interesting cross-section of instrumentation including cornet, flugelhorn, pipa, erhu, trombone, drums, bass and tuba. As you might imagine, this can be a fascinating cacophony. But it's also surprising in the way it eventually irons itself out and starts a cohesive narrative. Hwang's tale of roadkill is a starting point--the sudden and shocking image of that deer triggers something deeper in his soul and reminds him of his mother's "harrowing experiences in China during World War II." Hwang explains the connection like this: "Through Blood the violence of deeply held memories are not relived but transposed into our sound."

This is a heady idea, yes, but once we pass through the angry free jazz of "Breath Within the Bomb," the 12-minute opener, Hwang combines a classic jazz sound, equal parts free and be-bop, with the Chinese instrumentation. Here he shows that connection between the two worlds, the carcass of the present and the horrors of the past, all happening across vast chasms of time and space. These middle passages are taut and musical--the liner notes suggest a cinematic approach that can be easily digested by the listener.

Despite your reservations about exploring yet another free jazz nightmare, you could find Blood to be utterly absorbing--especially in the way it paints such vivid pictures. Hwang's story is sophisticated and expansive, the tale of his mother surviving a bomb blast in a pharmacy is juxtaposed with his sadness for two fellow jazz musicians, Americans who fought in Vietnam where "the magnitude of pain and sorrow that they endured is unimaginable." Blood, as the title implies, is as far from lighthearted as it gets. But it is fascinating in its cerebral approach, which is wrapped in a thoroughly accessible veneer.

Kenny Carr's Departure

Everybody here's heard of hard rock, but I wonder...is there such a thing as hard jazz? I'm not talking about a hard rock/jazz hybrid--I'm talking about jazz played with same power, the same sense of scale and drama of your typical hard rock band. I'm talking about tight song structures fortified with a Spector-esque wall of sound, you know, a slow build and an explosive climax. I wondered this, almost aloud, the first time I heard guitarist Kenny Carr's Departure. This is jazz through and through, but the way he and his band rip through these original compositions, you might think they all started a rock band decades ago and then suddenly decided that jazz was more worthy of their efforts and this was Day One.

Carr did start off in a different guitar genre, but it was classical music. He's been known for his distinctive blend of jazz, blues and fusion for many years--this is his sixth album--but I can't hear a lick of classical guitar anywhere. Carr has rock in his blood, it seems; it's in the way he stretches out notes during his solos and the way he carefully sets the mood with his riffs. You hear it when his quartet--which also includes bassist Hans Glawischnig, drummer Kenny Wollesen and sax player Donny McCaslin--really starts to push the dense momentum toward the ends of songs. It doesn't even have to be loud or thunderous, since the quiet moments are as plentiful as the maelstroms. There's just a sensibility here, one that may appeal to you if you're a bigger fan or rock than jazz.

Let me clarify: this doesn't sound just like rock and roll. That's not what I'm saying. But there are structures underneath it all, an energy that really isn't that common in jazz. Rock was so controversial during its infancy because the rhythms were almost sexual--it certainly reminded too many of its critics of that, anyway. That same tension floats in Carr's music, that tightness that binds the music into a more manageable whole. Jazz is so often about being loose, about having the space to explore. While Departure contains a wealth of jazz solos--McCaslin's are stunning in the way he angrily manipulates his mouthpiece--it's just so propulsive. Perhaps this is why Carr gave this album the title that he did.

When I look at what I've just written, I can almost hear the voices in my head asking me if I'm merely describing fusion jazz in its purest form. That might be the case, objectively, but that's not what I'm feeling. This is either a rock band exploring jazz or it's a jazz ensemble exploring rock, albeit in a very subtle way. The more you listen to Departure, the more you feel it. This is jazz that will make you "rock out."

Chris Pasin's Ornettiquette

The idea of paying tribute to Ornette Coleman, as well as his collaborator Don Cherry, might seem like a thorny enterprise to some. Coleman invented such a new language for jazz in his heyday, one that would eventually be known as free jazz, but the simple fact is that Coleman's compositions often straddled that chasm and afforded a proper entry point into the form. Trumpeter Chris Pasin understands this, and his new album Ornettiquette is surprisingly accessible and even delightful at times. Pasin, through his spiritual kinship with fellow trumpeter Cherry, guides his band toward the pure joy of Coleman, the energy and the mystery that has challenged and yet intrigued jazz fans for decades.

Much of the cheery attitude in the CD can be traced to Karl Berger's work on vibes. That distinctive shimmer puts a spotlight on the playfulness in the compositions in a way that can quite be conveyed by other instruments. Pasin and alto sax player Adam Siegel do bring lightness into the mix with their bright, energetic horns--they often provide an effective counterpoint--but Berger is the one who truly swings here. He is not the most extroverted of vibraphone players, nor does he need to be, but he does supply that aforementioned mystery to the set, that feeling that everyone might get into a bit of trouble later on that night.

Pasin may keep a low profile through much of Ornettiquette, but he provides some meaty innovations if you pay close attention. His steady cries during "Ghost" become vaguely animalistic, like a wolf howling to its mate across a wintry field. Vocalist Ingrid Sertso might just play the role of that mate, the way she whispers back with the slightest touch of a growl. All of this tension is pushed into the foreground by a splendid rhythm section of drummer Harvey Sorgen and bassist Michael Bisio--they never seem to stop, and that smooths out the edges.

I know people who are reluctant when it comes to enjoying Ornette Coleman--they know plenty of fans but they fear the music is far too difficult to dig on a purely musical level. This is the album to start that journey. If Pasin and his cohorts have succeeded in any one aspect, it's making Coleman's music fun and energetic and free (pun not intended) of chaos. Coleman might have helped found the movement--he coined the phrase--but he was a bridge, and he, along with Don Cherry, knew how to play a tune. So does Pasin.

CAF 2018: MoFi, Tenacious Sound and a Whole Lotta Real Estate

Here's the penultimate show report from the 2018 Capital Audiofest--this one covers the room of my buddy Shayne Tenace at Tenacious Sound. You can read it here at Part-Time Audiophile.

CAF 2018: ModWright Instruments, Fritz Speakers and Oh, It's You Again

Here's another show report from the Capital Audiofest--ModWright Instruments and Fritz Speakers. You can read about it here at Part-Time Audiophile.

CAF 2018: Paradigm, Anthem and Staying the Heck Out of the Way

Here's another show report from the 2018 Capital Audiofest--this one is about a very simple system from Paradigm and Anthem that still managed to be very impressive. You can read it here at Part-Time Audiophile.

Michael C. Lewis' Intimate Journey

This new album from trumpeter Michael C. Lewis sounds like a throwback, but not a throwback in typical jazz terms. We're not talking about be-bop and big band or any of that, but a more recent past where the sound is brighter and glassier and more, well, digital. I'm talking about '80s jazz, which has sort of this Patrick Nagel sheen covering it, with lots of electric keyboards and electric basses and smooth horn sections. We're getting uncomfortably close to terms like "lite jazz" or "smooth jazz," which is not my thing. But Michael C. Lewis and his horn start doing something else in Intimate Journey, something almost subversive.

When so-called smooth jazz started popping up about thirty years ago, it tried to do just one thing--it tried to update the traditional jazz forms into something that would appeal to larger pop-oriented audiences. You've heard of the old adage of trying to please everyone and therefore pleasing no one? That's what smooth jazz did in the '80s. But let's face it, lots of people did like it, and they still do. What Lewis is doing is taking that sound as a jumping-off point and adding all of the things we've heard since, especially when it comes to hip-hop production and even electronica. I'm not saying that Intimate Journey sounds anything like hip-hop, but you will hear those modern approaches in the synthesizers and percussion, steady and truncated beats that simply weren't around thirty years ago.

Lewis the man is quite talented--he also sings with a rich and deep voice that is made for old-fashioned love songs in the classic R&B style. And he plays the trumpet and the flugelhorn in that distant, shimmering and dipped-in-sugar way that was big in the '80s. This side of the music will sound familiar to you. But dig deeply into songs like "Miles to Go," with his muted horn obviously paying homage to a certain trumpeter, and you'll hear the new, the trip-hop expansions and the beats that are real but almost sound programmed.

When Lewis dives into the funk later in the album, he's definitely at his creative peak. Those are the elements that lift him into relevance, as opposed to being a confection for all those people who are still addicted to cool, smooth jazz. He's stretching across this bridge, almost slyly, bringing these two disparate crowds of fans together under one beat. You'll hear this as Intimate Journey moves along from track to track, getting ever more adventurous. You'll be caught up by the end once you learn there's another layer hiding deep in the mix, waiting to see if you notice.