Search - Steve Coleman, Five Elements :: Weaving Symbolics

A man's reach should exceed his grasp;

greg taylor | Portland, Oregon United States | 07/26/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"...else what's a heaven for. The Browning quote is definitely fitting for Steve Coleman. This double CD is his latest sprawling work on Label Bleu. At times to any one listener it may be excessive- there are definitely compositions on this CD I could do without. But there are also absolute moments of musical glory like "Gregorian" and Li Bai/Astrology II. And all of it impresses with its striving for what I guess I could call a collective musical consciousness/intelligence. What Coleman and his cohorts achieve on this CD rises above the limitations of my musical tastes.

First some info on the CD. It is a double CD with a total of 19 tracks. The music was recorded over seven different recording sessions in 2004 and 2005. Two of the sessions were in Sao Paolo, Brazil, four in Brooklyn and one in Philadelphia. The compositions recorded in Brazil all feature a rhythm triumverate of Nei Sacramento, Felipe Alexsandro and Luciano Silva on percussion. The Brazilian sessions feature musical grouping as large as eleven musicians. Besides the Brazilians, Marcus Gilmore plays drums and Reggie Washington plays bass on all of these compositions. Beyond that it is some combination of Malik Mezzadri on outstanding flute, Nelson Veras on guitar, Tim Albright on trombone, Jonathan Finlayson on trumpet, the absolutely amazing Jen Shyu on vocals and Coleman on the alto saxophone.

The US sessions are all trios featuring Colman is some combination with Josan Moran(piano), Eric Revis (bass), Jeff Watts (drums), Albright, Gilmore, Shyu or Finlayson. There is also one solo by Coleman and one duet with Shyu.

The large grouping pieces share a similar approach. The different members of the groupings are given different time meters to play in most of which seem odd. Not a whole lot of 4/4 happening here as far as I can tell. The meters seem more like 7/11 or some such thing. Not only are many different time signature being maintained but there seem to be different melodic patterns or harmonic structures being utilized as well.

The result is an overall rhythym that may only repeat over many bars or may never repeat. And yet somehow the whole thing frequently demands that you dance to it. A soloist can utilize any of the musical resources being offered by the group or can solo in a very traditional manner. Frequently, Coleman for example sounds to me like a fairly traditional (in the sense of being grounded in the jazz tradition not as being boring) soloist playing in a very odd background. It is very cool in that

I think that most of the saxophonists that I love (Charlie Parker, Sonny Criss, Jackie McLean, Anthony Braxton, Julius Hemphill, Henry Threadgill, Art Pepper among others) would have a great time in these groupings. These large grouping are also striving for collective decision making or learning. I suspect there is a lot of freedom within the patterns maybe something like what Braxton does with his pulse lines where four bars may be written out and the next four are improvised within a visual

structure.

I know all this sounds very tentative and grasping toward a theory on my part. But when these guys get it down like on the aforementioned Gregorian, this music is insanely good. It is too bad that Amazon does not have sound samples.

The trio sessions may be less complicated but they are great music. Here it is very easy to hear the collective sense of the music being made.

Finally, I have to sing the praises of Shyu. I have never heard of her before. The sound samples of her own CD that I have listened to on the web are very different from the way she sings on this album. On gregorian she is the ultimate scat singer articulating every note and time signature perfectly. On Li Bai, I believe she is singing in Chinese (like I would know). The harmonic materials sound like something tradtionally Chinese as well(again this is a guess). In any case, it sounds great as she does throughout almost the whole CD. The only problem I have with any of the music is that there are a couple of songs where Coleman has her singing like on some 70's fusion album. All I will say about that is that I may just be exposing the limitations of my taste. Some of y'all may love it. doG help you.

Put such smallness of my spirit to one side and seek out a way to

listen to some of this CD. Go to the m-Base web site and read some of Coleman's writings. The man is a thinker and a musical visionary. On this CD, I think he is offering us musical visions of the way we can create collectively. At times, it is brilliant. At the least, it is very good. So maybe in his own way he is giving us a vision of heaven. Maybe I'm crazy. Whatever. I dare you to listen to it and not be stirred.







"