Search - Bill Dixon, Tony Oxley :: Papyrus I

Successful Duo Effort for Dixon

01/05/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Bill Dixon, trumpet guru of the avant-garde (or, as he would put it, "THIS music"), has again teamed up with sometime cohort Tony Oxley, a drummer who could be considered Europe's primary practitioner of the meterless school of percussion, a technique pioneered by such Americans as Milford Graves and Sunny Murray, and Dutch master Han Bennink. The result is an intense detail of an abstract audio painting by two kindred souls. "Papyrus Vol. 1" is immensely satisfying, both for its eerie beauty and undercurrents of tension. Dixon fans are used to this sort of thing: anyone familiar with, say, Son of Sisyphus knows the skill with which Dixon can coax unearthly pedal-tones from his horn, and the surprising facility he shows on piano. Oxley's all-over approach is a perfect counterpart to Dixon's astonishing range. How do you accompany a man who jumps from a tuba-like pedal tone to a double-G in one phrase? Oxley has played with everyone, it seems, but has really proven his rare talents with the free titans like Cecil Taylor and guitarist Derek Bailey. The duo with Dixon is no less riveting. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this collaboration is the completeness of the sound. On Dixon's "Vade Mecum" Vols 1 and 2, he and Oxley had bassists William Parker and Barry Guy provide a writhing, rubbery canvas for the splashes of brass and percussion. "Papyrus Vol.1" doesn't fall into the repetitiveness that occasionally affect both "Vade Mecum" records possibly because of the sparse arrangements. Dixon is focused and inventive. His tone is haunting, with reverb and delay applied tastefully and appropriately. When the listener finally removes his/her headphones (recommended), (s)he is pleasantly entranced. Both Dixon and Oxley are graphic artists as well as musicians, which is fitting for this type of improvisation/composition: the soundscapes take on a visual aspect. If Bill Evans compares the improvisation on Miles' "Kind of Blue" to Japanese painting on a thin surface which will break as soon as the brush stops moving, then Dixon and Oxley's efforts can be seen as a form of simultaneous abstract sculpture; Dixon working in woods, Oxley in pliant metals.A wonderful record, and a nice change from their last meeting, Oxley's "The Enchanted Messenger.""

Art of interplay

Benjamin W. Smith | Maplewood, NJ United States | 06/18/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The music is multidimensional. As a musician I'm aware of structure and multilevel development in the unfolding of the musical content. I'm feeling the experience of the two masters while being challenged and stimulated cerebrally. The process of the freed improviser is carrying out from the musical impetus, be it motivic, sonorous, gestural, energy, extramusical, or other. Whatever that impetus may be the freed improviser becomes the channel for its course. I experience the first presented piano piece as motivic, dynamic, cerebrally clear and feeling very much like a composition, with a hint of searching within the phrasing, for just that dynamic, tone or combinations of tones, fragment of something previously stated that may include a silence or sounds that have included silences, a place in a musical range, a dynamic and situations around dynamics, an under or overcurrent of energy, use of layers to the foreground and midgrounds containing threads of the musical impetus that produce the strongest impact. This means is active for the duration of the recording. The tools of the craft are identifiable to those familiar with Dixon and Oxley. Bill's trumpet's motivic and melodic approach is expressed through carefully phrased lines and extended technique including toneless air through the horn; pitched and nonpitched tuneful or expressive vocal sounds including grunts, moans, pinched sounds and others (particularly in tracks 3 and 9); extended range pedal tones; also judicious use of reverb and echo. Oxley employs varying duration crescendo and decrescendo, space, and splashes of sounds as some of his musical tools in an uncluttered approach to full percussion playing. It is the context of the emotion, the feel of the session, the sense of being tuned in and receptive, this product of the musical sensibilities that defines Papyrus, two musicians as a duo and with the use of overdubbing, trio, and the richness produced within an ostensible economy of means. Tracks 1, 6, 8, and 12 are piano solos; tracks 2-5, 9-11 are trumpet, percussion duets with track 3 and 9 having extended areas of solo trumpet; track 7 has Bill overdubbing trumpet and/or piano with Oxley on percussion. Percussion appears as a voice, at various times providing rhythm, colors, punctuation, points of drama in the form of a variety of sonorities, dynamics, and timbre integral to the musical moments. Technique is on display in full, not only or necessarily in the sense of virtuosity, but also in the sense of matching sounds desired to the physical technique to produce them. Emotion is wide ranging, I sense controlled, contained emotion with moments of bursting through or surrendering. This setting provides Dixon's deeply personal style of improvisation/composition a powerful immediacy to the receptive listener.Dimensions in musical moments that follow are relationships heard, not thought processes or set form, but the results of musical relationships from its creators' sensitive listening and responding.Some unfolding structures I'd like to give mention to are: the melodic treatment and development in track 10 which, from beginning to around 4:58 contains a percussion rhythm with the trumpet melody stated and repeated in whole and in fragments that peaks on a tone via way of a scale-like figure, various percussion lines played off and on keeps the rhythm's sense. The melody slowly grows more sustained over a longer period of time and at around 5:40 the scale like figure part of it grows in pitch, dynamic, and expressive articulation range. It culminates at around 6:30 where the scale like figure is a declaration that bursts through its previously set boundaries as a most emphatic dynamic that ends the track. Activity is in the form of track 11, which has the most consistent and strongest production of sound from the percussion, the trumpet phrasing is spaced in the manner of previous tracks yet an underlying energy is produced by the continuous sound and activity of drums. Careful listening reveals that the drums are playing an indefinite pitch pattern that the trumpet line initially plays in a similar contour.Track 7 is an example of layered sonorous dimensions. It's a trio in the sense of three instruments are played, at times simultaneously employed by overdubbing, and strikes me as a dedication. Piano as elegiac, in the foreground, harmonies almost "tonal" with progressions. Trumpet plays counter lines at times in its own elegiac manner, at places their tones and sensibilities meet, as if they were listening and playing off of each other. Two structural pillars are in places the piano sounds low repeated tones after which expressive trumpet lines are played. The other is two areas of a jaunting sharp piano rhythm that is picked up by the trumpet. Keen interplay is displayed at moments where the piano sounds repeated low tones and is sounded by the drums moments later, and when the trumpet sounds rumbling pedal tones and echoed screeched higher tones, these are echoed by the rumbling of drums a few times. Echoing is one of the sonorous dimensions present where the trumpet sprays echoed flurries of sounds in its own space at certain moments.The "realized" structures mentioned point to some of the coherence of this art. Repeated listenings reveal a lucid music displaying musicians intuitively expressing the possibilities of the range and realm of their musical encounter."