We seem to be entering the '80s with, at long last, a flowering of what can be called "post-Ornette jazz"; pianoless bands playing in what can still be called the jazz idiom, operating in areas all the way from total freedom to the song form that was so central to the music's earlier history. As proof of this one can point to the relative popularity, or at least visibility, of such bands as the Art ensemble of Chicago, Jack DeJohnette's Special Edition and Old And New Dreams, and the recorded evidence offered by the recent releases of such modern, broadly-based groups such as Andrew Cyrille, Johnny Dyani, Jemeel Moondoc, Keshavan Maslak, Barry Altschul, Sam Rivers and others.
To add to these ranks as a unit of the highest calibre is the quartet on this record. Marty Krysatll and Buell Neidlinger are both players who have spent time in the calssical and jazz fields. The range of influences in their music is wide; I Gor's Blues is based on themes by Stravinsky, Like, Latin/Synapse goes from latinate to ballad to blues, Modern Gizz is based on the changes of A Night In Tunisia and Cecil is, in the realm of subtle distinctions, "dedicated to (Cecil) Taylor but named after Buell's four year old son."
The music this quartet makes is superb; their evident mastery of their instruments alone does not account for the tight interface between composed and improvised passages, the great sensitivity of the musicians for each other, the high quality of the group improvisations and, above all, the wonderful feeling of buoyancy and excitement this music imparts to the listener.
This record contains an added bonus which almost seems like an afterthought in light of the terrific music on the rest of the disc: a seven and a half minute track of Neidlinger in 1961 with Cecil Taylor and Billy higgins, playing Neidlinger's blues O.P. This period of Cecil Taylor was interesting but perhaps not wholly satisfactgory musically. The marvelous tension of his late '50s music, rooted in jazz time, was on the verge of blossoming into the freer forms we can hear on "Nefertite..." and his work later in the 1960s. Here the pianist's fantastic harmonic extrapolations of the blues seem politely supported rather than equally entered into by Neidlinger and Higgins. But even for its historical value alone we are fortuneate that this track has appeared on record, and the obvious pitfall - that the inclusion of a single track featuring an artist of Taylor's stature will draw attention away form the work of Krystall, Neidlinger, Higgins and Gale - does not occur, due to the high level of the quartet's performance. In fact, one's immediate desire is to hear more of Krystall Klear And The Buells' music. Word has it that the next record will include a pianist instead of Gale, a diffent drummer, and possibly guest artist Vinko Globokar, the Yugoslav avant-garde trombonist who, according to Krystall, "can really smoke on the blues". Regardless of personel, if Krystall/Neidlinger intend to continue into the '80s with music of such quality, the question of whether or not they are "ready for the 90s" need not immediately concern us.
–David Lee
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