Search - Ted Sirota's Rebel Souls :: Breeding Resistance

On rhythm, revolution and truth telling.

greg taylor | Portland, Oregon United States | 08/24/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"There must be something about playing contemporary jazz drums that leans one to the left. I have recently picked up CDs by Royal Hartigan, Chad Taylor and this one led by Ted Sirota that breathed revolutionary ire and fire in the liner notes and music. What's interesting is that in all three cases the resulting music has been outstanding so maybe there is something about revolutionary ire and fire that generates great art. (As a corollary, perhaps the reason the Bush administration seems so anti-art and anti-science has something to do with their brand of "conservative" politics-but that is the subject for another review).

Back to the music. The band is Ted Sirota on drums, Clark Sommers on bass, Jeb Bishop on trombone, Geof Bradfield on the tenor and Jeff Parker on guitar. If you are at all aware of the contemporary Chicago scene, most of these names should be familiar to you. Bradfield is an outstanding tenor player (see my review of his Rule of Three CD). Bishop is, of course, a member of the Vandermark 5 as well as a leader of his own projects. Jeff Parker is part of the various Chicago Underground configurations.

Sirota himself is Berkely trained and worked in various Boston groups until he moved to Chicago in the early nineties. In the mid-ninties, he formed Rebel Souls which has been his main project ever since. This is their fourth CD.

One thing that is various apparent about all of these guys is that while they all have been influenced by the AACM, they have also listened to and absorbed a lot of other music. They can play outside jazz but they do not do so very often. Their more usual approach is a soulful update on post-bop jazz. They like reggae music, Fela Kuti, and the blues. Their soli are thoughtful and they enjoy thorny harmonics as much as most good jazz players but they also just like to swing. Almost anybody will really get a kick out of listening to Parker's comping and soloing on this CD.

I guess what I am getting at is that this music is solidly in the jazz tradition. But please consider what I mean by that. Remember that part of that tradition is to disrupt, to expand, to change the subject in an unexpected way.

Above all, the jazz tradition to me is about expressing the truth of the moment. The jazz musician at his or her best is immersed in the music of the moment, in that club, with that audience, playing with everything they know and feel. That is what these guys are trying to do. Who knows, maybe that sort of search for truth in the moment leads to leftist politics? The corollary of which would go a long way toward explaining the problems the current administration has with telling the truth. I can't believe I wrote that. Maybe leftist politics are contagious. Let's hope so.

In any case, check these guys out. This is a great working group that deserves to be better known.

"

Funky jazz with radical politics

R. Hutchinson | a world ruled by fossil fuels and fossil minds | 06/27/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"BREEDING RESISTANCE is a rhythm-driven slice of r&b and jazz, plus Afrobeat and reggae, with brief Coltrane moments the only hints of the avant-garde. Chicago drummer Ted Sirota formed the band in 1995, and this is the third recording, with a shifting lineup. The frontline is Jeb Bishop on trombone, Geof Bradfield on tenor, and Jeff Parker on guitar. Sirota penned five of the tunes and Bradfield three, while Bishop, Parker and bassist Clark Sommers each wrote one.



The disc opens with an Afrobeat number, "Saro-Wiwa," dedicated to an activist killed by the Nigerian regime. "This Is a Takeover" is reggae/dub. "D.C." stands for Don Cherry, though Bradfield's composition is not as adventurous as the classic Ornette Coleman quartet. "For Martyrs" and "Elegy" are ballads, while the title cut is an up-tempo workout, which ends with Sirota bellowing "YEAH!" There are some good solos here and there from Bradfield and Bishop, but this is mainly a rhythm section album. Strong left-wing politics runs through the music, but it's mainly found in the titles and liner-notes. The one exception is "Chairman Fred," which includes a clip from a speech by the charismatic young leader of the Chicago Black Panthers before he was assassinated by the FBI and the Chicago Police.



The key influence on the eclectic Rebel Souls sound is revealed first in Bishop's "Knife," probably the best composition on the album, and strongly in the last two cuts, "Axe" by Bradfield and "Pablo" by Sommers -- the Crusaders. That suggests that Sirota would do well to move in an even more populist direction -- forget about avant-cred entirely, head straight for the pocket, and try to sound more like "Put It Where You Want It" next time around."