WIG30: Duo Baars-Buis: Moods for Roswell

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Roswell Rudd 16 januari 2017 00:03 RR

Duke in Bohmerwald

Aan: Ab Baars
Thank you guys Joost & Ab for reaching out. Ring,Zing,Bing,King,DingaLing Dong Song
Nothing like Ellingtonia anywhere anytime. Especially clarinet & trombone! the way U2 do it
Love slipsliding all the way (&Ig2)
Rozzy & Vern

TRACK LISTING
1 Sootywing / Black Butterfly
2 Catskills Cyclist / Sonnet for Caesar
3 Two Ways / Wig Wise
4 Cool and Gentle / Mr. Gentle Mr. Cool
5 Hopkins Rudd / Jack the Bear
6 Little March / Klop
7 Sweet Stumblings / Sweet mama
8 Handwoven / Creole Blues
9 Take Turns / Tonk
10 Moods for Roswell / In a Sentimental Mood

Total time: 36:36

BUMA STEMRA
all music Ab Baars and Joost Buis
adaptations of/compositions by D.Ellington and B.Strayhorn

recorded October 12 2017 at Studio Helmbreker Haarlem
Micha de Kanter/Mideka Music Recording
mixing & editing Micha de Kanter Ab Baars Joost Buis Ig Henneman
design & cover photo Francesca Patella
liner photo Harry van Kesteren
produced by Ig Henneman
with support of Stichting Wig/Wig foundation
release date March 31 2020

REVIEW
This 2017 session from Amsterdam’s clarinet/tenor/shakuhachi player Ab Baars and trombonist Joost Buis is an unofficial sequel to 2005’s Kinda Dukish (Wig 12) by Baars’s trio plus Joost: exploded versions of Ellington and Strayhorn compositions, with the melodies typically embedded within improvisations sometimes cut with new scored material, and including a few overlooked tunes. The duo follows the same general plan; “Jack the Bear” and “Mr. Gentle and Mr. Cool” return from that CD.

The duo go back decades on Amsterdam’s chummy scene, playing on sundry special projects (such as the late Cor Fuhler’s shadow-puppet mystery Wayang Detective) and countless improvised evenings; in the 1990s Baars guested with Buis’s band Astronotes. Prior to that, each had explored Ellington repertoire separately, Ab as a mainstay of the ICP Orchestra, for which Misha Mengelberg had arranged several Ducal compositions in stretchy versions presaging (though not resembling) these. Baars and Buis were also profoundly stamped by their interactions with contrapuntalist Roswell Rudd during the trombonist’s 1996 Dutch visit – hence the title of this CD, and of “Hopkins Rudd/Jack the Bear.” Taking a cue from Clusone 3, they duly credit the original tunes to Duke and Billy Strayhorn but claim the surrounding improvised and new material for themselves, so every track has shared credits and a double title.

“Cool and Gentle/Mr. Gentle [and] Mr. Cool” – the latter a riffing 1958 blues drolly volleyed by Paul Gonsalves’ tenor and Ray Nance’s plucked/bowed violin – begins with an insertion reprised from Kinda Dukish: a pecking, staccato Baars line echoing Misha’s one-finger repeated-note piano (which had some jabbing Duke in it). Informal contrapuntal improvising on same follows, neither gentle nor cool, though they slowly turn in those directions, as note values lengthen. Duke’s fetching melody arrives only in the last 40 seconds.

The pieces are short, generally in the three-four minute range. Sometimes the melody’s at the end (“Black Butterfly,” with slow leapfrogging on the conjoined alter ego “Sootywing”), or in the middle (“Catskills Cyclist/Sonnet for Caesar”), or hard to spot at all (the 1928 two-beat “Sweet Mama”). It might even come right at the top: the raggy polka “Klop” (from the post-Strayhorn UWIS Suite) works in all the written parts, including the quieter “trio” movement. The Baars/Buis portion is called “Little March,” defining their steppin’ approach. Both leaders got early training in field bands.

The treatments may be more deconstructive. “Hopkins Rudd/Jack the Bear” begins out of tempo, with Baars playing Duke’s introductory band trills like a birdcall, followed by the duo reenacting the original’s piano-horns call and response in open time, voices from the levee, before they jump into swing for the chorus’ catchy ending. The open improvisation that follows is an exercise in tag team listening as well as playing; they hit Duke’s ending again, after which the improvising unobtrusively switches to jazz time and blues form.

Baars mostly plays clarinet, where he has his own distinctive forceful/fragile voice, even as his precise altissimo notes and upper-atmosphere flare-ups speak to his studies with John Carter. Buis knows the Ellington trombone voices but stays closest to Lawrence Brown’s warmth (as on “Handwoven/Creole Blues”). He does very little and subtle background plungering, avoiding obvious Tricky Sam wah-wahs. (Not that Baars-Buis won’t get a little gutbucket.) “Moods for Roswell/In a Sentimental Mood” begins at a low murmur; a minute and a half in, subtone trombone picks up the melody in the middle of the bridge. Ab meanwhile rustles on non-idiomatic shakuhachi, a dust devil encircling brass. He plays his blowsy tenor on the barstool dialogue “Sweet Stumblings/Sweet Mama” and the sleekly scored/jazz-timed “Two Ways/Wig Wise,” which makes a covert connection to Roswell: “Wig Wise” as heard in trio on Money Jungle sounds oddly like Rudd hero Herbie Nichols.

Baars and Buis bring a light touch to it all, even when the sound gets heavy. They don’t crowd each other; so the texture remains transparent, and the conversation lucid. They even elucidate Ellington and Strayhorn a little. On “Take Turns/Tonk,” based on Strays’ dense modernist four-hands piano piece they’d play at parties, the contrasting wind voices let you differentiate the individual parts. One duo shines light on the other.–Kevin Whitehead, Point of Departure