PARTY PARTY PARTY PARTY PARTY PARTY PARTY PARTY

And so goes the refrain of the title track to Marc Ribot's new "Party Intellectuals;" imagine Fred Schneider of the B-52s fronting The Nels Cline Singers, and you begin to get it. The rest is just as out-there ("When We Were Young and We Were Freaks" is early Sonic Youth with an 80s era Bill Frisell playing shards of guitar noise; "Girlfriend" is the greatest nineties middle-eastern flavored garage-rock track ever recorded ), but while no two tracks are quite alike, there is no question that everything is being played by Marc Ribot and his cohorts in Ceramic Dog, Shahzad Ismaily (bass, electronics) and Ches Smith (drums, electronics). If Nels Cline's "Draw Breath" was a manifesto last year that free jazz should be about rocking out, Marc Ribot has given the first shot back: "Party Intellectuals" is an incredibly loud rock record by a downtown jazz musician, and one of the best albums of the year so far.

There are occasional counter-examples; "Todo El Mundo Es Kitsch" isn't loud, and "For Malena," a Spanish tinged folk rock tune about a man making money for his daughter, is more Tom Waits than it is Dinosaur Jr. That said, however, the former is a joke. "Todo El Mundo Es Kitsch-" literally, "The Whole World is Kitsch-" follows through on its title, offering up a world-funk elevator groove along with incessant throw-away lines about doing kitschy things around the world ("In Paris, we sipped a coffee in a cafe," "In Monaco, we struck it rich") and insistent "la la la"s. The track that immediately follows, the aforementioned "When We Were Young and We Were Freaks," is the opposite: an avant-garde freak-out featuring Ribot's dark, half sung, half spoken vocals and skronky guitar-work.

Even the free noise tracks are worth listening to; both "Digital Handshake" and "Midost" have grooves to them, and while eventually they fly the rails, when they do it seems like a logical extension of the improvisation that has already occurred. "Party Intellectuals" is not a jazz album by any measure, nor is it really a fusion record, nor even an avant-garde free-rock fest like "Draw Breath" or the Free Form Funky Freqs' "Urban Mythology Vol. 1," but an entirely different beast. Clearly "Party Intellectuals" is not an album for everyone (purists need not apply, nor those with sensitive ears), but for those with an inclination to explore, "Party Intellectuals" is a true one of a kind. There is nothing quite like it, and while it doesn't exactly fit Marc Ribot's recent jazz direction ("Saints," "Spiritual Unity"), it happens to be brilliant anyway. Highly Recommended.

Next time I'll have the first annual Downbeat Critics Poll: Tally and Grievances! So get excited, it promises to be a classic. I heard from a source close to me that I didn't do so well, but we will see as soon as I can get my hands on the most recent copy. Also, voting is now open for the Downbeat Readers Poll, so if you click on the link you can vote, preferably for people who aren't supplied to you by Downbeat (The Jazz Monster voted for Chris Dingman on vibes and Nels Cline on guitar, for example). Check back next time!

Freedom of Expression: Marc Ribot, Anthony Coleman and Brad Jones Tear it Up, Evan Parker Puts it Together

It's time for another free jazz round-up, everybody! After the overwhelmingly positive response (Well, actually, there were no comments... but on the plus side, there were no negative comments!) from the first one, a joint-review of new albums (or reissues) from the Free-Form Funky Freqs, Fieldwork, and Matthew Shipp from a month or two ago, I decided that as soon as I had enough obscure free jazz to write about, I'd jump on it immediately. For those of you who have not heard of Marc Ribot, Anthony Coleman, or Brad Jones, the three of them have played together sporadically over the past twenty years (and between the three of them have played with a lot of people in both the jazz and rock worlds), and after a few years of not playing together reunited at The Stone on Saturday night. Evan Parker is a brilliant European saxophone player who made his name by releasing one of the great solo saxophone records of the seventies, simply titled "Saxophone Solos," and his band on the new "Boustrophedon" is rounded out by a 14 piece orchestra that includes Roscoe Mitchell and Craig Taborn amongst its ranks.

To be frank, Saturday's concert at The Stone (John Zorn's cramped, non-air conditioned mecca for experimental music in New York City), featuring Marc Ribot, Anthony Coleman, and Brad Jones, was not for everybody. In fact, it probably wasn't for most people. All three of my friends wanted to leave at one point or another, but I wouldn't let them drag me out. The music was abrasive, occasionally boring, audience-bating- everything that can make a great free-jazz concert fall apart- but for some reason, the stars aligned and it just happened to hit the spot perfectly. Ribot, Coleman, and Jones tore music apart at its seams and made no effort to sew it back together; the three "songs" (I put "songs" in quotation marks because each piece was more of a lengthy improvisation than a standard) floated around the room, sometimes turning into outright noise with Anthony Coleman's prepared piano acting as a percussion instrument and occasionally anchoring the groove. The best "song" of the three was the second; it began as a folk dirge, complete with open chords and a triplet feel (although it changed arbitrarily between 3/4, 6/8, and 9/8), staying there for a while until moving into a lengthy portion devoid of time and finally move into a pulsating section that could only be described as funky Stravinsky. The concert clearly wasn't for everyone, and many people walked out. But man is it fun to just see great musicians bang on shit and see what kinds of cool noises they can make every once in a while.

Evan Parker takes the opposite tack on "Boustrephedon," recorded at a concert a few years ago; as opposed to simply deconstructing and rearranging music and rearranging music with life-affirming zeal, Parker is more interested in finding the meeting point between the worlds of free jazz and avant garde classical music. Some passages in "Boustrephedon" are clearly composed in some fashion (either written out or dictated), and in "Furrow 5" and "Furrow 6" there are moments in which entire segments of his 14-piece orchestra play in tandem. These backing figures- if you can even call them that- add a different back-drop for the soloists to work with, and in that sense they serve to make the music more interesting. The soloists themselves are all incredible, with a particularly interesting solo from clarinetist John Rangecroft towards the beginning of "Furrow 4." The portions during which the band freely improvises as a whole are just as cacophonous and dissonant as one would expect from a group like this, although anybody who actually goes out and buys and Evan Parker record probably knows what to expect. While, again, it's not for everybody, "Boustrephedon" poses an interesting answer to the question "How free should free jazz be?," and for those who are interested in this sort of music it's definitely worth listening to.

But that said, it doesn't offer the same catharsis as hearing a bunch of great musicians bang on shit and do things they aren't supposed to do to their instruments. Seriously, what a great concert. Next time I'll either have a joint-review of Moss' new self-titled album and Cassandra Wilson's "Loverly" or a review of Marc Ribot's new album with his band Ceramic Dog (whose 10 o'clock show at The Stone I would have gone to if not for my wussy friends).

John Zorn's Hat Trick

John Zorn sure isn't who he used to be; folks who know John Zorn from his "Big Gundown" days would be in for a shock at his recent output. As opposed to the schizophrenic channel surfing of "Naked City" or the angry bursts of noise characterized by "Spy Vs. Spy," John Zorn has taken his downtown credibility and used it to create a forum for new music inspired by old Jewish sounds. As opposed to consolidating his (well-earned) rep as a noise-maker, Zorn barely plays saxophone these days; he's much more interested in writing music for his many performing ensembles and in using his venue, The Stone, as a veritable land of milk and honey for the downtown scene. One can't criticize him for the volume of his output though; he's released three (!) albums so far this year, not including his one-off collaboration with Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson.

The best of these three albums is "The Dreamers," by Zorn's electric Masada band, and it is also the only one to actually feature Zorn's saxophone playing. While it takes its time to unfold (the first track to really gel is the fourth track, "Anulikwutsayl," which prominently features Marc Ribot's guitar), when it finally does it never lets up. Marc Ribot and Jamie Saft (keyboard) manage to create a sort of Jewish-music-meets-surf-rock-meets-avant-garde vibe which sounds odd on paper but works brilliantly on record. Zorn himself burns on "Toys," a kitschy, nearly free-improvisatory exploration of a variety of sounds and styles too numerous to name here. Highly recommended.

"Lucifer," the tenth installment of original compositions from Zorn's recent "Book of Angels" (the sequel to his "Book of Masada"), is played by the Bar Kokhba Sextet, which also features Ribot and percussionist Cyro Baptista. The album isn't nearly as out there as "The Dreamers," and has more in common with chamber music than jazz. While that isn't necessarily a bad thing, the group doesn't move the idiom into new areas like it did on its installment of Zorn's "Fiftieth Birthday Celebration" series, and the album suffers because at time it seems boring. That said, Zorn's compositions are good, if not as stellar as those from his Book of Masada and so I'd give this album a tepid recommendation; if you love Zorn's current work, its still worth picking up.

Zorn's new edition of his "Filmworks" series, "Vol. 19: The Rain Horse," features Greg Cohen on bass, Mark Feldman on violin and Rob Burger on piano. The music is absolutely sublime; instead being all over the place as on "The Dreamers," Zorn's compositions here are beautiful in a quiet, understated way. Its not jazz in any sense of the word, but being that Zorn released so many albums I figured it was worth listening to, and I'm glad that I did. This one is definitely recommended for anyone who would like to hear a different side of Zorn, or for anyone who wants a way into his more recent classical work.

Next time I think I'll have a review of Matana Roberts' "Chicago Project," but that could change as a ton of albums were released today (including "History Mystery," by Bill Frisell, an old Zorn cohort).

"Free" is Just Another Word for "Nothing Left to Lose"

An odd development of the last twenty years or so has been the adoption of free jazz language into the vernacular of straight-ahead music, and of the adoption of a more straight-ahead approach to free music. After classics of totally free group improvisation like John Coltrane's "Ascension," free jazz musicians realized that there was no where left to go but back in as early as Charlie Haden's 1969 classic "Liberation Music Orchestra." Two recent releases, "Urban Mythology Vol. 1" by the Free Form Funky Freqs and "Door" by Fieldwork, and one reissue of a classic of 90s free jazz, Matthew Shipp's "Multiplication Table," explore the concept of structured free music at length.

"Urban Mythology" is the most fun of the three records, and ironically the band's members are the oldest; two of the three members (Jamaladeen Tacuma on bass and G. Calvin Weston on drums) have spent time in Ornette Coleman's Prime Time outfit, and the other (guitarist Vernon Reid) has worked with everyone from Ronald Shannon Jackson to Bill Frisell. "Urban Mythology" is a funky record with more in common with bluesy classic rock than free jazz, and partly for that reason something feels trivial about it. To me, at least, "free jazz party record" sounds like something of an oxymoron, and while the playing is uniformly good, tracks like "Chump Champ Chunk" and "Get Your Legs On" seem to be trying a bit too hard. That said, if booty bass, power chords, and free jazz pedigrees are your thing this one is worth checking out.

Fieldwork, something of a power trio of young musicians, including Vijay Iyer (piano), Tyshawn Sorey (drums) and Steve Lehman (alto saxophone), is free mostly in the way these compositions were created: each member came in with works of their own, which were then reworked by the trio as a whole. This concept works surprisingly well; its impossible to tell which compositions are Sorey's, Lehman's or Iyer's without looking up the credits. Like The Freqs, the playing is all around excellent, but unlike The Freqs, it never sounds forced into a groove. Tracks only last as long as they have to, some ending after three minutes while others go on for up to eight. An interesting record by an interesting trio. Recommended.

HatOlogy is reissuing a number of classics in underground improvised music (look out for reviews of Paul Bley's "12 (+60) In a Row" and John Zorn, Bill Frisell, and George Lewis's "News for Lulu" if I can get my hands on them), but the stand-out is Matthew Shipp's "Multiplication Table," a classic of post-modern 90s free jazz. Shipp violently tears apart a number of songs, both standards and originals, but the best performance on the album is his nearly five minute solo piano intro to "C Jam Blues," drastically reharmonized and battered out by Shipp as if his life depended on it. Later on in the track, as Shipp is joined by drummer Suzie Ibarra and bassist William Parker, the song is given a trio treatment. Parker's playing on "Zt 1" and "Zt 2" is also particularly notable; his extended bowing technique on upright bass creates a creepy effect.

Next time I'll post reviews of the new Gregg August record and possibly the Hank Jones and Roberta Gambarini collaboration "You Are There."