Fred Ho and the Saxophone Liberation Front - Snake-Eaters
Fred Ho (baritone sax); Hafez Modirzadeh (soprano sax); Bobby Zankel (alto sax); Salim Washington (tenor sax)
"...its disciplined/riotous sound suggests that he's not only still going after a long bout with cancer, but is still going strong." Mike Heffley, Signal to Noise
Darker than Blue, inspired by Curtis Mayfield's song, We the People Who are Darker than Blue, employs shifting meters (including a blues section in 11/8 and 11.5 /8), 12-tone serialism, compound meter ostinati, and Lydian chromatic approaches to orchestration.
Ho's Yellow Power, Yellow Soul Suite coincides with the soon-to-be publication of the Drs. Roger Buckley and Tamara Roberts' festschrift by the same title, and includes the previously recorded "Fishing Song of the East China Sea" (originally a flute trio with bass violin on the out-of-print recording by Fred Ho and the Asian American Art Ensemble, Bamboo that Snaps Back; and the now-defunct Brooklyn Sax Quartet recording The Far Side of Here), as well as Afro-Asian adaptations of other Asian folk songs.
Jeet Kune Do (The Way of the Intercepting Fist) is an homage to one of Asian America's greatest innovators, martial artist-actor-philosopher-teacher Bruce Lee. Lalo Schifrin-esque tropes from the epic film, Enter: The Dragon, combine with the élan of Stan Getz-ian bossa nova and cool styles, and epitomize the Zen-like philosophy and pugilism of Bruce Lee: the art of fighting without fighting; or as Ho has stated: the point of technique is to have no technique (and by inference, be completely intuitive, improvisational and in the moment).
Reflections (Upon Reflections!), in a sonata-like form of Exposition upon Monk's classic tune, an extended Development that is a significant departure from a chord-changes based tune, and a brief Recapitulation. Misty-ificaton is a "what-if" supposition: What if the DNA of Errol Garner's Misty was mixed with the genes of Rob Zombie's films? Frightening? Horrifying? Or, Hyperbolized? Steroidal balladry?
During the international campaign to oppose the celebration of the Columbus quincentennial, in which indigenous peoples joined with anti-imperialist and pro-social justice forces worldwide, including a vast array of artists, the old Fred Ho composed the Beyond Columbus and Capitalism suite for the Rova Saxophone Quartet, which would during the 1990s lead to the formation of the Brooklyn Sax Quartet when Ho was asked to do numerous benefit concerts throughout New York City
Reflections (Redux and Prefigurative) has Ho playing Thelonius Monk's melody in the very bottom register of his low-A horn while voicing the accompanying saxes down-upwards, and ending with a collective bluesy-gospel romp towards an ending chord of precursory possibilities.
Finally, the extraordinary duet by Fred Ho and Persian-American vocalist Haleh Abghari, Dear Reader, based upon a James Tate poem, which was commissioned in 2006 by the Guggenheim Museum Works and Process series. enheim Museum Works and Process series.
TRACK LIST
Darker than Blue (7:04)
Yellow Power, Yellow Soul Suite:
Fishing Song of the East China Sea (2:12)
Tanko Bushi (4:12)
Baeng Nori (2:08)
Hero Among Heroes (4:47)
Jeet Kune Do: The Way of the Intercepting Fist (for Bruce Lee) (6:43)
Reflections (upon “Reflections”!) (5:43)
Misty-ification (aka Mystification) (3:04)
Beyond Columbus and Capitalism:
My God, My Gold: The European Invasion (3:18)
Civilization or Syphillisation? (7:51)
The New World Odor (The Huge Farts of Red-meat Eating Imperialists Foul the Earth!) (2:49)
Ghost Dance on the Grave of Capitalism (3:29)
Reflections (Redux-Prefigurative) (3:02)
Dear Reader (3:38) (Fred Ho, solo baritone sax; Haleh Abghari, vocals)
REVIEWS
Ken Waxman, The New York City Jazz Record, February 2013
Revolutionary Marxist, convinced polemicist and canny social critic, baritone saxophonist Fred Ho is all this and more. He’s particularly skillful in forging into music expressions of his beliefs, which include the need for oppressed people’s liberation and the intrinsic beauty of indigenous African-American and Orientalsourced sounds. Snake-Eaters, a matchless demonstration of Ho’s talents, uses only the reed textures available from a saxophone quartet. Present The Music of Cal Massey (A Tribute) is even more spectacular; via a larger sonic canvas available with 12 players, Ho interprets compositions by another politically sophisticated improviser.
Ho’s Saxophone Liberation Front (SLF) - Hafez Modirzadeh: soprano; Bobby Zankel: alto; Salim Washington: tenor and Ho - work in a manner midway between the ROVA quartet’s aleatory conception and the studied funkiness of the World Saxophone Quartet. Although the SLF’s sophisticated interpretive techniques are aptly demonstrated on a couple of Thelonious Monk covers plus a jokey “Misty”, the key components are two suites: “Yellow Power, Yellow Soul Suite” and “Beyond Columbus and Capitalism”.
Building on traditional Far Eastern melodies, parts of the first suite are surprisingly tender, especially Modirzadeh’s lines. Most tunes, however, mix reed vamps and screeches with Oriental-sounding motifs to demonstrate Ho’s Black Music-Yellow Music cohesion. “Hero Among Heroes” is the major statement. Fittingly there appears to be echoes of Amerindian sounds added to the Oriental and Europeanized narratives as the sequence balances the soprano’s angled oboe-like tone with quivering intensity from Washington and Ho’s hefty bottom tones.
Alternately mocking and celebratory, the fourpart “Beyond Columbus and Capitalism” was composed by Ho in 1992 to point out that the Columbus quincentennial was no celebration for indigenous and anti-imperialist forces. Standout sequences include the exquisite stair-step harmonies on “Civilization or Syphillisation” while “The New World Odor (The Huge Farts of Red-meat Eating Imperialists Foul the Earth)” features tongue-slapping mostly from Ho, aurally demonstrating what the title promises. The concluding “Ghost Dance on the Grave of Capitalism” has the most joyous melody, a dance macabre sounding like an invitation to the dance floor.
