Antemasque: Antemasque

After almost a decade of some of the densest, most challenging and generally thrilling rock music as the core of The Mars Volta, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala took advantage of a break from working together to regroup in startingly stripped-down fashion for 2014's self-titled Antemasque.

For those used to the lengthy, complicated pieces on the several MV recordings, it is a bit of a shock to hear the shorter, simpler more direct songs on Antemasque.  Steppiing away and regrouping, though, produced an album that reduces the songwriting qualities that marked the best of their work together over the years.

Long-time friend Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers let Rodriguez and Bixler use his studio and played bass, while Dave Ellitch, who toured with Mars Volta in 2009, provide the steady underpinnings of the rhythm section and play great.  As for Rodriguez, his arranging and production, while stripped down, is always intriguing and full of both homage to his many influences as well as highly individualistic.  Bixler's singing is strong and clear and the biggest surprise, perhaps, on Antemasque is that his lyrics are simple, direct and understandable (well, for the most part.)

Moreover, the songs are shorter, more compact, free of filler and sonically diverse, while retaining this listener's attention and interest.  In fact, every piece is strong, with the most pop-like piece is easily "50,000 Kilowatts," a tribute to radio that, at 2 minutes and 21 seconds, is built be a radio-friendly single and has a chorus clearly intended to be sung by a crowd.even while there are a couple of true standouts.

The first is the phenomenal "Drown All Your Witches," which features a rare example of Rodriguez playing some really tasty acoustic guitar and Bixler provides a great melodic line and fine vocal delivery.

Following that is the mind-blowing "Providence," with a great low-end bass line from Flea and nice slowly dissolving cymbal work from Ellitch.  But, the clincher is Bixler's  powerful delivery of the chorus with a stuttering ending with echo added for a chilling effect.

Then, the next tune is the rousing "People Forget," with Bixler's thrilling vocal underpinned by a simple two-note line by Rodriguez and the tight rhythms of Flea and Ellitch.  The coolest part of this tune to this listener is Flea's playing during the chorus, though the bridge is great, too.

Evidently there is to be a follow-up album, Saddle on the Atom Bomb, with Blink-182's Travis Barker on drums and Rodriguez' brother Marfred on bass, but, while eight songs were previewed in November 2015, nothing else has been put out about the project.

After a strong debut, let's hope the next record comes out soon

Horace Tapscott: The Tapscott Sessions, Volume 8

This amazing composer, pianist, bandleader, teacher and community-minded activist and mentor, was, as has been pointed out here previously, sadly underappreciated.  As has also been noted, my exposure to the great Horace Tapscott was at a free Friday evening concert at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, circa 1991, and I was astounded at his performance and that of his band.

I'd gotten into jazz in a big way only recently and was able to see Tapscott perform a couple more times at Catalina Bar and Grill in its earlier location in Hollywood.  His phenomental talent continued to amaze both in person and on the one album I was able to find in those years, The Dark Tree, Volume One, recorded at Catalina's in 1989.

It's still not easy to find recordings, but over the years a few have cropped up at prices reasonable enough to shell out.  It's also the case that Tapscott had only rare recording dates until the 1980s, thanks to Tom Albach of Amsterdam, whose Nimbus West label was created because of tapes Albach bought of Tapscott's work and issued a significant cache of albums from the pianist, including band and solo recordings.

Of the latter, one of the more interesting is 1991's Volume 8, in which Tapscott performs three standards and one original.  The opener is the stunning "Fire Waltz," one of many great tunes by the pianist and composer Mal Waldron.  Waldron recorded the piece on an album featuring another little-known genius, multi-instrumentalist Eric Dolphy.  One of the great versions of this piece is from the amazing Five Spot live recording by Dolphy and Booker Little from the very early 60s.

Tapscott performs "Fire Waltz" alternately with great sensitivity and beauty and then with passion, power and, yes, fire.  He follows with "Little Niles," composed by another underappreciated pianist, Randy Weston (who I saw years ago in a great performance at Cal State Los Angeles) and named for a son, and Tapscott explores the keyboard with his individual sense of gorgeous melodic insight and dynamic power, especially with his signature use of the sustain pedal.

Taking on anything by Thelonious Monk is a challenge, because classics like "Crepuscule With Nellie" are so well-known and so idiosyncratic, that you really have to make the tune your own with something distinctive.  Tapscott plays the tune at a slower, blusier tempo and takes the time to explore the famous melody with his own little flourishes and deviations and then improvises beautifully from that, including some explorations in a bit of dissonance that highlight Tapscott's rare ability to be both unabashed melodicist and determined experimentalist.  It's his explorative, but totally cohsive, improvisation here that stamps a classic tune with a pronounced Tapscott touch.

Tapscott's beautiful original, "As A Child," is a great close to a fantastic album, rich with melody, played at a ballad tempo that allows the notes to echo into the space of the recording studio.  At about 3 1/2 minutes in, Tapscott switches gear to something faster, more swinging and takes in soloing off the melody that shows his penchant, again, for exploration within the spirit of the theme of the tune.   He then returns to a slow ballad form to conclude with a powerful sustain-heavy finish. This song reappeared later in his final recording, Thoughts of Dar Es Salaam as a shorter, band version recorded in summer 1996.  In this extended solo version, there is more intimacy and also more probing, though the later version is also excellent.

In his short notes, Albach observed that it had been three years since the release of the previous volume in the solo series and gave his reasons for volume eight as "Horace's true stature is finally being recognized (at least in Europe) and I am running out of time."  Why time was running low wasn't explained (probably financial reasons), but Albach went on to say

That art this Promethean could emerged from the commercial virulence of Los Angeles is indeed, further testimony to the wonder of the human spirit . . . I am proud to have played a role in helping this man maintain his dignity and choice during these unsoulful days.  He has given meaning to the twilight of this aging mooch.

Morton Feldman: Durations/Coptic Light

This is a remarkable recording in which Morton Feldman's experiment with time, especially in which he allows the performers to determine the length of given tones, as in the five-part "Durations" from 1960-61.

To this untutored listener, "Durations" is also exceptional because the economy employed in scoring the strings, flute, tuba and violin allow for each instrument to have its own space so that the the dynamics, interactions, and atmosphere created are hypnotic and dream-like.  Interestingly, the one section of "Durations III" marked as "Fast" is, rather, a little less slow than the rest of the piece, but hardly a jaunty allegro!

"Coptic Light," a 1986 piece for a full orchestra from the end of Feldman's life is a very different aural experience.  It is also dream-like, but more on the nightmarish side, though in a captivating and compelling way.  Repetitive washes of strings and brass are accompanied by the light rumbling of percussion and there is a sort of dissonant effective even as the scoring has a strong logic to it.

Feldman was said to have been inspired with this work by his long-standing fascination with textiles of the early Coptic society in an exhibit at the Louvre.  He then thought about the role of the textiles in that society and applied this musically in terms of, as Peter Niklas Wilson states in the liners, "the atmosphere in which they had arisen if one were to hear them two thousand years from now."

Another interesting observation by Wilson had to do with a statement by Jean Sibelius about the distinction between an orchestra and a piano being the latter had pedals to alter the effect of the music.  Feldman, then, "set out to create an orchestral pedal, a pedal changing constantly amid fine nuances" throughout the score of "Coptic Light."

The sound quality of this CPO recording is excellent and the performance by the Ensemble Avantgarde from Leipzig is beautifully rendered.