Search - Frank Gratkowski :: Facio

The jagged rhythms of Frank Gratkowski.

greg taylor | Portland, Oregon United States | 08/08/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Frank Gratkowski (saxs and clarinets) has been playing on the European jazz scene since the late 1980s and, as a leader, since around 1991. He first came to my attention on Klaus Konig's (highly recommended) Time of Destruction CD.

As good a sideman as he is, the best way to enjoy Gratkowski is as a leader, particularly of his working quartet. This group originally started out as a trio with Gerry Hemingway on the drums and Dieter Manderscheid on the bass. That trio is represented on the recording Flume Factor. They became a quartet when they added the (extremely) great Walter Wierbos on the trombone. This is their third CD as a quartet. Amazon also carries their second CD, Spectral Reflections, which in some ways remains my favorite.

I prefer to review this one though because the music on this CD makes such an obvious case for Gratkowski as a great current composer for quartets. This is really a case of a musician who has found the perfect instrument for his compositions. Every member of this group brings so much experience, restless intelligence and just plain love of music to their task.

Facio is presented as one long composition divided into nine sections. Some of the sections seem completely composed although I am probably wrong about that. Many contain obvious solo or counterpointed duo sections and a few seem to contain ending sections that are very quiet and unnerving (to me) group improvs that segue into the next piece.

The strength of the composing announces itself from the opening of the "evocation" that starts the CD. Gratkowski (who plays the alto sax, the clarinet, the bass- and the contrabass clarinet) opens with a clarinet line that sounds like Dolphy (melodically) channeling Bartok (rhthym). Wierbos is playing a counter melody behind that is in a free-floating time. And Hemingway and Manderscheid have launched into one of Gratkowski's patented jagged delapidated march rhythms. These rhthyms show up on all the quartet albums. I would make the claim that a good part of what makes a composer great is a unique sense of rhthym. Think Ellington, Monk, Mingus, Threadgill, Hemphill or Braxton. Gratkowski's marches seperate him as a composer from anyone else. And the heart of those grooves is Gerry Hemingway.

Hemingway is a groove master but he is more than that. The timing of the groove is always a bit off, always waiting a little longer than it should and yet it still grooves.

The overall effect of these three seperate components of "evocation" make for a wonderful composition and a wonderful way to start out.

On the other hand, Part 5 (rush) shows off Gratkowski's strength as an instant composer during his alto solo which starts off as boppish as I have ever heard him. Long fluid legato notes that morph over time into as coherent and lucid a solo as I know of using most of the varieties of extended technique.

Wierbos' solo is equally impressive featuring meditations on how to use all the possible tonalities of a trombone as materials in a solo. If you listen to older saxophone players they will talk about how someone like Ben Webster would vary the tone of the note as well as the note itself during his phrasing. A single phrase would feature many such variations. Wierbos has this ability to a postmodern abundance.

About the only weakness this CD has for me is during those quiet seques that I suspect of being group improvs. They are so quiet and so formless relative to what has come before and what they change into that, to me, they seem like let downs. Of course, that reaction is just that- my reaction. You may get these interludes better than I do and love them.

For me though, this is a minor complaint about what is overall an extraordinary CD. Better yet, it is the latest chapter in an evolving history of great recordings by this group. Come on, now! Collect them all!

"