ROSCOE MITCHELL / Solo [3]

Roscoe Mitchell (saxophones, flute, percussion)
 

Sudden music! All alone, unprotected, Roscoe Mitchell confronts Silence: the void, the vast unknown. One and a half of the 38 pieces in this collection are composed. Two more are improvisations that begin with at least some conditions. The other 34 and a half pieces are completely improvised-Mitchell simply picks up a horn or mallets and begins playing. He's armed only with his wide-ranging imagination, his instruments, his virtuosity, and his experience-for what more does he need? Proof of his self-sufficiency is that each improvisation is a distinctive, flowing work that has its own meaning, its own unique story to tell. "I started working on one CD," he says, "but I started getting more and more material, and I thought that at this point in my career, one solo CD is not enough. I'd better put out three CDs, because time is going on by."

Mitchell has been creating a cappella solos for around four decades now. He's one of the Chicagoans who virtually invented the unaccompanied horn solo in free jazz: "You have to be responsible for all the music-I thought it was part of what I had to learn. To be a good improviser you have to improvise by yourself and also with an ensemble. It's a good way to get where you're not following people - inexperienced improvisers will definitely start following the first strong idea that comes along." After a few pioneers such as Eric Dolphy and Jimmy Giuffre, Mitchell and some of his AACM colleagues (saxophonists Joseph Jarman, Anthony Braxton, violinist Leroy Jenkins, trumpeters Lester Bowie, Wadada Leo Smith, how many others?) went on to make a formidable medium of unaccompanied soloing. Along with the aesthetic rewards, there was another reason for this new medium's growth, in America and around the world, during the 1970s economic recession: Concert presenters who couldn't afford to hire a group could sometimes afford to hire a single artist.

It's not like the bygone times when artists spent their lives playing, say, Dixieland or bebop. Today's artists have to continually reinvent themselves. Through all of Mitchell's musical changes, he has remained fiercely, insistently original. The early years of his Art Ensemble and (from 1969) the Art Ensemble of Chicago were a time of discovery. As his scope steadily expanded-improviser, composer, with many kinds of large and small ensembles, as well as Art Ensemble member and lonesome soloist-he not only made more discoveries, he made remarkable developments of his rediscoveries. As he did with "Little Big Horn 2," he may very well go on to develop delightful new works from some of the wonderfully rewarding improvisations of Solo 3. (From John Litweiler's liner notes)

TRACK LIST

CD 1: Tech Ritter and the Megabytes

The Little Big Horn 2 (4:29)

November 18, 2000 (19:48)

1999/2002 (8:46)

Tech Ritter and the Megabytes/Improvisation (2:22)

November 17, 2000 (18:33)

A Dim Distant World (3:30)

Tech Ritter and the Megabytes/Composition (2:15)

CD 2: Solar Flares for Alto Saxophone

Nemus (7:00)

Beyond Neptune (5:10)

The Kyper Belt (6:51)

Miranda (7:00)

As the Sun Went Down He Would Look Up (5:03)

Icy Pearls (1:18)

The Great Red Spot (10:29)

The Forgotten Players of the Solar System (4:41)

Methane Snow (2:01)

Frozen In Time (4:47)

CD 3: The Percussion Cage and Music on the Go

Horn Bell and Drum (1:40)

Clear Pictures (2:38)

The Park (3:58)

The Mercurians (2:26)

Clocks (2:43)

A Surface Covered with Cracks (4:12)

Meteor (2:58)

Rings (1:52)

Some Flowers Were Seen (2:03)

Rock Number 84001 (2:19)

An Ambiguous Sign of Life (2:50)

On Rolling Hills (4:42)

Jump (1:31)

Green Sky (0:43)

One Two and Red Blew (1:25)

Truly (3:05)

It Was Only a Nebula Away (5:27)

Next Stop Titan (2:15)

At Corona ’s End (2:18)

Dust (3:35)

Sailing (2:53)

REVIEWS

 Ken Waxman, All About Jazz Bay Area

One of the first reedists to perform and record solo, Roscoe Mitchell has upped the ante with this magnum opus. Almost 40 years after the Art Ensemble of Chicago founder and AACM leader pioneer waxed a solo sax LP, he's confident enough of his material to turn out this 3-CD set. Luckily each disc offers something different.

Solar Flares for Alto Saxophone showcases manipulations of his main axe, with the output more concerned with legato story telling than the sort of multiphonic techniques most soloists exploit. Almost self-explanatory, The Percussion Cage and Music on the Go features a few soprano sax explorations as well as Mitchell exhibiting his prowess banging, hitting, and thumping the hundreds of little instruments he has gathered into a four-sided Rube Goldberg-style contraption he dubs a percussion cage. Most unusual is Tech Ritter and the Megabytes, where the reedist who has been involved in new music and electronics over the years, double and triple tracks his sax work to create interlocking reed bands. With 38 tracks, lasting from 43 seconds - "Green Sky," a slurred soprano sax outpouring - to almost 20 minutes - "November 18, 2000." A soprano saxophone showcase from a concert in Essen, Germany - quality and execution varies. Some of the most memorable pieces play varied percussive timbers off against one another or contrast saxophone tones. Because of this, the solo saxophone disc offers the fewest surprises.

Satisfaction has to be spread among 21 tracks on the third CD, with Mitchell on some tracks moving among the hundreds of real and invented instruments he has crammed into his percussion cage and playing solo sax on others. Among the more consistent tones produced are ones from gongs, air horns, whistles, tubular bells, claxons, hollow logs, balophones, wood blocks, real drums that are or resemble batas or djembes, triangles, toy xylophones, glass armonicas and temple bells. A piece like "Truly," for example, contrasts hollow clip clops with woodblock thwacks, rim shots plus vibrated finger cymbal timbres that resonate for many seconds at a time. "Clocks," living up to its name, uses the reverberations of hanging temple bells and cowbells to replicate the regular pulse of clocks.

Meanwhile, recorded live at the same concert as "November 18, 2000," "November 17, 2000" is an impressive soprano sax showcase. Here Mitchell contrasts an unstable lower-pitched tone and near whistling from a higher-pitched one. As his harsh, hunting horn-like slant gets more angular and grainy, he introduces circular breathing, creating split tone shards that vie for space with one another. Sideslipping into different keys, he varies the output with glottal punctuation and tongue-stopping. Surmounting all that has gone before with a diaphragm-related vibrato, his reed tones split into small peeps and sharp tongue slaps. Decelerating down to foreshortened notes, he ends overblowing, as if he's sounding more than one reed instrument at a time.

Solo [3] certainly provides insight into Mitchell's value as an instrumentalist, composer and improviser. But in three CDs some less-than-stellar tracks are includes. To properly appreciate the oeuvre, the massive musical meal should be taken in slow, small bites.

Julian Cowley, The Wire 

Envisaged initially as a single disc, multi-instrumentalist Roscoe Mitchell's Solo 3 grew to the bulk of a triple as he amassed usable material, and also because "time is going on by". It is, after all, more than 40 years since he emerged as one of the most wildly imaginative yet rigorous contributors to Chicago's 1960s ferment of advanced musical creativity. The mass of material on this new release is made less daunting by the allocation to each disc of a distinct identity. The first, "Tech Ritter and the Megabytes", is thankfully not a computerised Country pastiche but a variegated selection with sinewy weaves of multitracked horns; a pastoral interlude for flute and percussion; and convoluted, cumulatively dazzling soprano saxophone solos.

The third disc is entitled "The Percussion Cage and Music on the Go". Mitchell has been an influential advocate of "small instruments", modest and unorthodox resources used to nudge music making away from fixation with technical finesse and into direct engagement with sound. His "percussion cage" is an enclosing frame hung with gongs, drums, bells, cymbals and assorted small instruments. On each brief piece in this series he sounds the cage to resemble a meditative horn line rather than a battery, spinning out a sequence of varied colors, timbres and textures. Embedded among them is a set of five mercurial flights on soprano sax, collectively "Music on the Go", acid-toned and agile.

The central panel of the triptych, "Solar Flares for Alto Saxophone", comprises ten solos that show Mitchell at his most melodic and fluently inventive. Stepping aside from overtly radical structure and aggressively forceful execution that have been features of his earlier solo outings, he blows and flows, a surefooted pathfinder moving with ease and deft changes of pace through a forest of options. At times circular breathing enables him to move urgently at a teetering run; elsewhere he saunters, savouring the route. His tone is ruggedly elegant, steering clear of effects and embellishments. Throughout his musical life from bold AACM experiments to his accomplished chamber ensemble compositions, Mitchell has raised questions, challenged assumptions, pushed at horizons; he has rarely sounded so welcoming as he does on "Solar Flares".

Christian Carey, Splendid Reviews

A triple-disc set of solo free jazz improvisations might seem like a daunting prospect, even for musically courageous souls, but multi-instrumentalist Roscoe Mitchell provides enough variety to keep the material fresh and unpredictable, playing many different horns and a battery of percussion along the way. Mitchell, a pivotal member of both the AACM and the Art Ensemble of Chicago, has had a versatile career as both composer and performer. Solo [3] shares his singular amalgamation of disparate styles -- jazz, world music and modern classical; the music may be eclectic, but it has a purposeful and well-crafted sensibility about it. The first disc is devoted to pieces for sundry wind instruments. Some of these are really modified solo works, and feature Mitchell overdubbing several parts. "Little Big Horn 2" is a duet done in this fashion, for the unlikely combo of bass and sopranino saxophones. The bass plays long held notes while its smaller counterpart darts lithely in and out. "1999/2002" is another duet, this time for flute and percussion cage. Bell-like sonorities are set against the flute's folk-like melodies, creating music of a poignant lyricism. "Tech Ritter and the Megabytes" is an overdubbed quartet improvisation for two altos, tenor and bass saxophones. From both a linear and ensemble standpoint, Mitchell creates engaging material for the four horns. Sometimes they collaborate to create affecting post-tonal harmonies, while at other times all four go their separate ways, creating a digressive but engaging musical conversation. Disc one's centerpiece is "November 18, 2000", a gargantuan twenty-minute piece for solo soprano saxophone. Mitchell creates soaring, swirling lines that breathlessly turn over and over in a non-stop angular stream of notes. Its loquacity is occasionally given grit and determination by squalls, shrieks and overblowing. While the entirety is an endurance test, the listener's exhaustion will no doubt be tempered with gratitude and wonder at having experienced this resolute work.

Disc two is comprised entirely of works for solo alto saxophone. As such, it serves as an album-length suite of pieces, demonstrating Mitchell's versatility and creativity in the more restrictive concept of solo works for the same instrument, sans overdubs. From "Nemus", with its post-bop phrasing, to the Schoenbergian dissonance of "Mirnada", Mitchell gives a clinic on how to create a polyphony of ideas on an instrument that generates a single melodic line. Even short works like "Icy Pearls" and "Methane Snow" are filled with wonderful moments, despite their pithy economy.

The last disc highlights Mitchell's percussive explorations. Most of his work in this domain has been done in what he calls the "Percussion Cage", a four-sided structure filled with hundreds of instruments. Most of these are small: bells, chimes, toy horns and drums, cymbals and bicycle horns. As such, they create an enigmatic and subtle sound world, which Mitchell explores with dynamic sensitivity and an imaginative ear for color. While few of the works on this disc have as forceful a presence as the saxophone works on the preceding two, their delicate beauty and multi-tiered structures are a lovely listening experience.

Sure, triple CD sets are out of vogue, particularly for creative artists outside the mainstream. This may make Solo [3] seem all the more rarefied, but it is the wide reach of Mitchell's music that causes this kind of anthologization to be efficacious -- indeed, almost necessary. I have seldom heard a set encompass so many facets of music with such economy of means. Highly recommended.