BOBBY AVEY – Authority Melts From Me
Whirlwind Records – WR4650
Bobby Avey (piano) Miguel Zenón (alto sax) Ben Monder (guitar) Thomas Kneeland (bass) Jordan Perison (drums)
Recorded November 19th & 20th 2012
Avery, a prize winning composer and sideman with one of Dave Liebman’s exploratory groups, presents a musical manifesto that highlights and celebrates a historical event in which he has invested a great deal of emotional capital: namely the Haitian Revolution of 1791. In the sleeve notes Avey writes passionately about his attachment to the plight of Haitians in their resistance to Western imperialism and interference which extends from the eighteenth century ‘till the present day and which he represents in musical terms which range across the entire emotional spectrum.
The music is presented as continuous three part suite separated by two interludes, one for piano and the other, drums. In his writing and arrangements Avey has sought to identify with Haitian voodoo ritual which imagines parallel worlds, one inhabited by the living, the other by the dead which can only be connected by way of ritualistic drumming.
To illustrate these themes Avey has written and executed a suite of music that is at turns sardonic and ethereal employing themes that are screamingly ferocious and knotty alongside passages of reflective melancholia. There are three movements , the first and second linked by a piano interlude of limpid Debussy like impressionism and the fourth and fifth by a drum solo that depicts the Haitian Voodoo concept of parallel worlds referred to above.
Indeed, there is much that is ritualistic about the music which utilises jazz and contemporary forms to illustrate the struggle of indigenous people against oppression and exploitation and this theme is given expression through the dramatic power of Zenón’s cutting alto sax tones and the heavily rock laden guitar of Monder. Themes like the third movement threnody to the revolutionary Toussaint L’Overture, who lead the Haitian revolution of 1791, the first slave insurrection, are almost operatic in their sombre intensity having the quality of a lament whilst others explore the straightforward expressiveness of the blues to make the connection between oppressors and oppressed. Additionally, Avey utilises ideas from European avant-garde music to flesh out his theme like the extended drone like chorales of monophonic electronic sound to illustrate the existential despair that concludes his third movement.
As you will have gathered this is powerful music which will be of interest to the student of the contemporary avant-garde every bit as much as the jazz fan who is inclined towards boundary shifting modes of musical expression and though it is at times a challenging listen it is never less than compelling.
Reviewed by Euan Dixon
Whirlwind Records – WR4650
Bobby Avey (piano) Miguel Zenón (alto sax) Ben Monder (guitar) Thomas Kneeland (bass) Jordan Perison (drums)
Recorded November 19th & 20th 2012
Avery, a prize winning composer and sideman with one of Dave Liebman’s exploratory groups, presents a musical manifesto that highlights and celebrates a historical event in which he has invested a great deal of emotional capital: namely the Haitian Revolution of 1791. In the sleeve notes Avey writes passionately about his attachment to the plight of Haitians in their resistance to Western imperialism and interference which extends from the eighteenth century ‘till the present day and which he represents in musical terms which range across the entire emotional spectrum.
The music is presented as continuous three part suite separated by two interludes, one for piano and the other, drums. In his writing and arrangements Avey has sought to identify with Haitian voodoo ritual which imagines parallel worlds, one inhabited by the living, the other by the dead which can only be connected by way of ritualistic drumming.
To illustrate these themes Avey has written and executed a suite of music that is at turns sardonic and ethereal employing themes that are screamingly ferocious and knotty alongside passages of reflective melancholia. There are three movements , the first and second linked by a piano interlude of limpid Debussy like impressionism and the fourth and fifth by a drum solo that depicts the Haitian Voodoo concept of parallel worlds referred to above.
Indeed, there is much that is ritualistic about the music which utilises jazz and contemporary forms to illustrate the struggle of indigenous people against oppression and exploitation and this theme is given expression through the dramatic power of Zenón’s cutting alto sax tones and the heavily rock laden guitar of Monder. Themes like the third movement threnody to the revolutionary Toussaint L’Overture, who lead the Haitian revolution of 1791, the first slave insurrection, are almost operatic in their sombre intensity having the quality of a lament whilst others explore the straightforward expressiveness of the blues to make the connection between oppressors and oppressed. Additionally, Avey utilises ideas from European avant-garde music to flesh out his theme like the extended drone like chorales of monophonic electronic sound to illustrate the existential despair that concludes his third movement.
As you will have gathered this is powerful music which will be of interest to the student of the contemporary avant-garde every bit as much as the jazz fan who is inclined towards boundary shifting modes of musical expression and though it is at times a challenging listen it is never less than compelling.
Reviewed by Euan Dixon