Empty Cage Quartet
Hello the Damage!
pfMentum CD040 CD x 2
MTKJ Quartet
Day of the Race
Nine Winds NWCD 0258 CD
This hardworking freebop outfit from the West Coast – Jason Mears (alto sax, clarinet, wood flute), Kris Tiner (trumpet, flugelhorn), Ivan Johnson (bass) and Paul Kikuchi (drums) – used to have a Scrabble-player's nightmare for a band-name, but in the gap between these two albums they have rechristened themselves the Empty Cage Quartet. Day of the Race, a studio album, focuses on short self-contained tracks, but the greater concentration and sharp-focus sound work to the benefit of the music. Aside from the spacious "Not Finding Anything/The Beast Wheel's Revenge," the pieces gravitate toward brisk freebop and nagging funk, the grooves pulled so taut that the music has a compulsive, locked-in feel that builds up considerable tension over the course of a track. This music is a sinuous dance, but one where every move, every exit and entry, every bob and weave, is made with razor-sharp precision; at times the players even get into a delirious high-stepping polyphony recalling Braxton's earlier preoccupation with marches. But Johnson and Kikuchi are inventive and supple enough to keep the music from relentlessness, and the bass player's contributions in particular draw the ear as often as the soloists. The front line works off the contrast between Mears' mordant angularity and Tiner's supercharged mix of old-school jazz trumpet and the radical self-questioning of the avant-garde. His feature on "Attack of the Eye People" is evidence of his rare ability to use effects in a way that is fully expressive at a melodic and rhythmic level.
The two-CD set Hello the Damage! received its cheery title from a Babelfish translation of a French reviewer's pan of the previous disc. There's something of a lost-in-translation quality to the album, unfortunately, since the concert recording is far from satisfactory – the poor audio quality is particularly hard on Johnson and Kikuchi. Aside from that major caveat, this is a welcome complement to Day of the Race and a good example of the group's different approach to live gigs. The quartet uses pre-composed materials sparingly and flexibly, treating them as navigation points within long, open-ended improvisations. Tiner is again extraordinarily inventive: his solo on "Swan-Neck Deformity" is a stunner, suggesting still-untapped potentials in Miles Davis's legacy – it's as if Tiner has plumbed the most daring, piercing moments in Davis's music to propose a boldface musical language utterly different from the usual stylized fragility of Miles disciples. The greater emphasis on long-form improv risks the odd musical dead spot (and shows up Mears's tendency to filibuster), but also gives the musicians the chance to explore colour and mood at length in a way largely ruled out by the jump-or-die linearity of Day of the Race.
Alongside Shot x Shot and Exploding Customer, the Empty Cage Quartet finds a new way forward for the modern-day free jazz quartet.
-Nate Dorward