Fresh from their collaboration (with Mal Waldron and Billy Osborne) on Six Monk's Compositions (1987), in 1989 Anthony Braxton and Buell Neidlinger performed as a duo at McCabe's Guitar Shop, in Santa Monica, California. That intimate environment made for absorbing, deeply connected performances, and finally these master musicians have released a strong two-disc document of them. There are ample opportunities for Braxton's volcanic solos to overload the signal, but that doesn't happen. In fact, we hear a range of timbral subtleties from his four saxophones, and a clear, woody tone from Neidlinger's full-bodied bass. Musically and sonically, the duo is consistently in balance.   
      Braxton and Neidlinger devote almost half the program to Thelonious Monk's music, including two takes of "Off Minor." Braxton plays with restraint on the melodies of "Criss-Cross" and "Well, You Needn't," then stretches furiously. Neidlinger, unfazed, lays down mid-tempo walking grooves, but also allows Braxton to lure him outside.
      The non-Monk pieces are improvisations that Neidlinger titled long after the fact. "Tonight the Night," dedicated to the late Greek composer Iannis Xenakis, appears on both discs (the second version segues into "Off Minor" long before the track listing indicates). "Ballade in F" begins with tense melodic musings on C-melody sax, while "High Flight" ends disc 1 with a full-tilt freak-out on unaccompanied soprinino. "Exodust," a three-minute sketch in poignant rubato, ends the encounter in surprisingly tonal fashion.

Anthony Braxton and Buell Neidlinger could have dug into any number of concepts in a duo performance, considering the saxophonist’s prolific output and the bassist’s far-ranging résumé (Cecil Taylor’s original quartet, Frank Zappa and orchestra gigs) and his love of composers like Xenakis. Although these two sets from 1989 feature a lot of spontaneous invention, a few Thelonious Monk classics link everything together. Two years prior, Neidlinger played on Braxton’s Six Monk’s Compositions (1987), so the rapport was already established before they hit the stage at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica, Calif.

Unlike the pianist who composed the pieces, our heroes use Monk’s themes as jumping-off points, in Braxton’s case for a never-ending stream of ideas. Neidlinger walks steadily through the changes behind him, an admirable task considering the leaps Braxton makes in “Criss Cross” or the directions he takes in general. The nine choruses on “Well, You Needn’t” are almost excessive, but the clarity of his double-time playing keeps it impressive; it also inspires Neidlinger’s strongest solo, which includes some slippery double stops. “’Round Midnight” can challenge anyone who attempts to add something new to the tune, but this brief rendition ends after one chorus, with Neidlinger playing the melody, making it a wise and clever take.

Braxton, as usual, plays a variety of saxophones throughout, this time sticking closer to the higher-ranged, portable ones. “Tonight the Night” [sic]—which sounds spontaneous but begins with the same theme in both sets—finds him going from sopranino to soprano and alto in the first set, building up a furious energy that almost sounds like two horns blurring together when he returns to soprano toward the end. He also whips out the C-melody sax during the second set, and the audience sounds more enthusiastic than the polite crowd in the first. Fans of Braxton’s For Alto squonk will devour this set, which also features dizzying soprano runs that evoke John Coltrane’s climactic moments in “My Favorite Things”—with a higher-octane blow. When “Off Minor” reappears at the end of the second set, in a shorter form, it flows easily out of the second “Tonight the Night,” as if to prove that these two consider both styles with a similar passion. Likewise, these recordings may be more than two decades old, but they sound as fresh as if they were recorded last week.

REVIEW FROM  jazzreview.com  by  Glen Astarita:

Spanning several decades, progressive-jazz and improvisational icon Anthony Braxton has been no stranger to duet settings amid his large and small ensemble aggregations. Therefore, this 2-CD program recorded live in 1989 is the artist's fruitful collaboration with bassist Buell Neidlinger, noted for his work with Cecil Taylor, Steve Lacy, and educational duties at the New England Conservatory.

It's a varied mix, highlighting the artists' resourcefulness. And they use space as a prominent metric or to fast forward time, especially when Braxton's reed-work encompasses a gamut of high-strung phrasings. Moreover, he uses vibrato to sing a melody, and alters the momentum via gruff choruses and super-speed flurries, complemented by Neidlinger's firm and pliantly executed lines. The duo's symmetry is a key factor. Hence, the musicians seemingly cover all possible angles and discourses while covering several Thelonious Monk compositions and improvisational pieces.

Monk's classic "Well, You Needn't" is given extended treatment. Here, Braxton circles around the primary theme with his C-melody sax and tenders a consortium of emotive aspects. With bristling breakouts and yearning notes he also dishes out a few frenzied segments, often underscored by Neidlinger's contrapuntal maneuvers and juxtaposing statements. Interestingly enough, Braxton closes the piece with a literal reading of the primary melody, offering a conventional outlook to a briskly moving deconstruction effort. Indeed, a largely captivating program that should garner the interest of the respective artists' longtime admirers. Otherwise, the musicians' fusion of artful expressionism and superb technical faculties yield the bountiful fruit.

Braxton and Neidlinger's 2 By 2 is a resurrected set from 1989, recorded live at McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica, which explains the sparse but polite applause, which is tentative, at times, at the end of solos. Braxton and Neidlinger convey a sense of urgency; they have something they need to get out, thick and furious. They plug into each other to complete a composite organism; a symbiotic business.

Braxton pushes bebop vocabulary until it starts to shred, screeching at its edges. Parts of his passionately ragged solos sound like gutbucket R&B, but then again, under his fingers and frantic half-second breaths, four saxophones in sequence become sweet fluttering flutes, woodsy clarinets, sonorous strings, flat-brassed trumpets. Neidlinger, impeccable and steady, pulls out one soft-shoe after another on his walking bass lines, slipping lyrically into arco logic, a stream pushing at some downed reeds until it clears the obstruction and redoubles its rushing.

Five Thelonious Monk tunes ground the duo in Monk's Wonderland logic, but they make and take their own methodology, with shouts out to Xenakis, LaMonte Young, a snatch of "Harlem Nocturne." Symbiotic business is good. Take this one home for the sake of commerce, nature, vitality, testimony, and possibility.          

Featured Artist: Buell Neidlinger

CD Title: Thelonious Atmosphere

Year: 2002

Record Label: K2b2 Records

Style: BeBop / Hard Bop

Musicians: Buell Neidlinger (bass), Marty Krystall (tenor sax, bass clarinet), Brenton Banks (piano), Billy Osborne (drums), Hugh Schick (trumpet), Jerry Peters (keyboards), William Jefferey (drums)

Review: Cellist/bassist Buell Neidlinger was born in New York City in 1936. Originally starting out his music career as a cello soloist, Buell developed a keen interest in the jazz bass by the age of 25. He sports a fairly impressive resume including stints with Joe Sullivan, Herbie Nichols, Dick Wellstood, Vic Dickenson, and Oran "Hot Lips" Page. He has recorded and performed with singers Tony Bennett and Billie Holiday, instrumentalists Lester Young and Rex Stewart, the Gil Evans band, and Cecil Taylor just to name a few.

Starting in the early seventies until the late nineteen nineties, Neidlinger embarked on an extensive recording career as a section leader on hundreds of major Hollywood film music sessions. He has played on numerous pop and jazz recordings with Barbara Streisand, Frank Sinatra, Earth Wind and Fire, The Beach Boys, Duane Eddy, Elvis Costello, Anthony Braxton and Frank Zappa among many others. In addition he has frequently led his own jazz ensembles in both Europe and throughout North America.

Rounding out his musical career, Neidlinger has played with some of the most prominent orchestra's in the country including the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops, the American Symphony Orchestra, the Berkshire Music Center Orchestra, and the Houston Symphony.

Performing as the group called "Thelonious" this CD features Buell Neidlinger and reedman Marty Krystall with two different combos; a quartet and a quintet. The first is an acoustic band featuring Brenton Banks on piano and Billy Osborne on drums. The second band, on the final five tracks, features keyboard player Jerry Peters, drummer William Jeffery and trumpeter Hugh Schick.

Buell says "I had been playing and recording Monk's music since the late 50's, but in recent times, Marty and I became increasingly fascinated with it. We noticed that a lot of people said what a great musician and a tremendous influence Monk was, but in most cases, they weren't bothering to play his music, except the more familiar pieces like 'Round Midnight' and 'Straight No Chaser'. We didn't want to be guilty of that."

The group Thelonious, as you might expect given their name, plays only Monk music. On Atmosphere they have put together a wonderful collection of Monk's music. This CD contains music recorded live during two separate concerts. The first one a radio broadcast in honor of Monk's 71st birthday - the second was as the opening act for Ornette Coleman at the Palace Theatre in Los Angeles.

Thelonious Monk during his lifetime and even today after his death remains one of the most fascinating and controversial figures in the history of jazz. Arguably, one of Jazz's greatest composers, he had an instantly recognizable style on the piano, angular and intricate. As Monk once stated, "If you really understand the meaning of be-bop, you understand the meaning of freedom."

Neidinger and Krystall have a deep understanding of Monk's music and are clearly dedicated to it. Here they have assembled 11 Monk tunes including some earlier and lesser know compositions like "Skippy," "Four in One" and "Little Rootie Tootie."

Thelonious Atmosphere is a unique and inventive CD mixing two separate concerts into one recording. Both bands are wonderful and do an excellent job upholding the spirit and rich history of the Monk compositions they play. While if you are not a Monk fan you may find the music a bit hard to listen to, stick with it through your first couple of listens and you will be richly rewarded. And for you Monk aficionados- this is indeed worthy of adding to you Thelonious collection.

Tracks: Monks Dream, Four in One, Monk's Mood, Jackie-ing, Trinkle Tinkle, Bye-Ya, Epistrophy, Thelonious, Little Rootie Tootie, Locomotive, Skippy

Record Label Website: http://k2b2.com

Reviewed by: Nelson Rand

One of the unsung giants, Marty Krystall is best known in the jazz world for his tenor-sax and bass clarinet playing in idioms ranging from bop to free. However in the early 1970s, he also regularly played in rhythm and blues groups. During that period, he further developed his huge tone and ability to excite audiences. Liquid Krystall Displayed was originally conceived as a tribute to that period although typically, it is a lot wider ranging.

For the set, Krystall (who also plays soprano) gathered together the bluesy guitarist Calvin Keys, Jerry Peters (doubling on organ and piano), the great veteran bassist Buell Neidlinger, and drummer Peter Erskine. While some of the selections are pretty funky, the program also includes exciting versions of two Thelonious Monk songs (a rapid "Skippy" and "Introspection"), a heartfelt rendition of Billy Strayhorn's "Blood Count," "Stablemates" and Krystall's "Tenor Badness." In reality, none of the ten performances are throwaways and they all have their exciting moments, breaking down the boundaries between classic r&b, hard bop and freer explorations in colorful fashion.

Liquid Krystall Displayed is well worth acquiring and available from www.k2b2.com.

Los Angeles reed expert Marty Krystall is an unaccountably overlooked master who has a knack for collaborating with other neglected luminaries. “Liquid Krystall Displayed” will only enhance his reputation as a treasure hunter, as he joins forces with bass legend Buell Neidlinger, Bay Area guitar great Calvin Keys, versatile pianist/organist Jerry Peters, and drum star Peter Erskine. Mixing Monk and Strayhorn with Peters’ pop-inflected originals and Krystall’s blowing vehicles makes for a pleasingly disparate program.         

There must be more Monk tribute albums, topped only by Ellingtonia Tribute releases, than to any other creative improvising artist. One of the latest, is also 25 years old, CRISS CROSS-LIVE AT THE RED SEA [K2B2 4569], by the group THELONIOUS [Buell Neidlinger-b, Marty Krystall-ts, Hugh Schick-tpt, Bill Cunliffe-p, Billy Osborne-drm]. Thelonious is headed by Neidlinger and Krystall and beginning in the mid-80s have released a handful of Monk homages. This was recorded live, 2/17&18/90 in Santa Monica, California, and it is very live indeed. And the liveness is a part of the charm. The balance is uneven as the chomp-chomp-chomp of the drums is too upfront, voices of encouragement are in evidence but the spirit is wonderful. Krystall is a killer and reminds me of the spirit exhibited by Johnny Griffin on the Monk at the 5 Spot releases. Cunliffe, who had yet to make a featured recording, sounds like he is having a ball and has the Monk filagrees down and, like other members of the quintet, is at times all over the place. This would be an excellent subject for a blind fold test. Ten Monk compositions given new life on an old date. Mark Weber has written liners about the whys and wherefores, a creative force writing on creative forces. I share the performers' enthusiasm.

Bassist, cellist and composer Buell Neidlinger, born in 1936, came up by playing with Herbie Nichols, Oran "Hot Lips" Page, and Vic Dickenson, among others. With his apprenticeships done, Neidlinger started working with artists like Tony Bennett, Billie Holiday, Lester Young, Rex Stewart and for seven years with pianist Cecil Taylor. After a stint in Sir John Barbirolli's Houston Symphony, Neidlinger returned to New York in 1965 to work with composers like George Crumb and John Cage. Further work included time with the Berkshire Music Center Orchestra, one Igor Stravinsky's chamber ensembles, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. A move to California in 1971 to teach at CalArts led to eventually joining the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and work in West Coast studios.

This recording finds Neidlinger's Quartet performing live at the Ravenna Jazz Festival in Italy in 1987 with soprano saxophonist and Thelonious Monk Scholar Steve Lacy sitting in. The program, 40 minutes long, contains five Monk compositions. The ensemble tears into the music with a ferociousness rarely found except in live performances. There is no taking-it-safe on these tracks; each and every moment is spent pushing the music to its limits.

Lacy is, as he always was playing the music of Monk before his untimely death in 2004, incredible. His soprano tone is solid and in-front of the mix. He rips up the rarely heard "Skippy," and makes so many twists and turns that "Epistrophy" is the highlight of the recording. Pianist Brenton Banks has also sadly passed away, but his rock solid playing lives on with this recording. While he is a fine soloist, he tears up "Criss Cross," it's his work comping, laying out the harmonic foundation for the saxophone soloists and spurring them on with jabbing rhythmic punctuations that shows him to be a true master. Drummer Billy Osborne rolls through the proceedings in a manner similar to Elvin Jones.

Tenor saxophonist Marty Krystall, perhaps inspired by Lacy's joining the band, leaves no prisoners. It's almost as if Krystall feels he's in competition with Lacy because of the wild abandon he brings to all of his solos. The hoots and honks he interjects into "Little Rootie Tootie" are not only thrilling, but their musical placement is perfection personified.

While Neidlinger takes a sweet solo on "Reflections," it is in his duet with Lacy on "Little Rootie Tootie," during Lacy's solo, that most aptly demonstrates how Neidlinger is just what his bio reflects, the consummate musician.

The problem with the recording is the sound quality. It's hard to know where the recording was taken from, maybe the sound board, but audio restorationist Marty Krystall had his hands full with this project. The end result has the sound in a compressed state with the drums coming across booming. Thankfully most jazz lovers are all about hearing what the musicians played, substituting in their heads the correct sounds of instruments learned from personally attending live concerts. Barring the sound problems, this is a great document for students of jazz demonstrating just how thrilling music can be when creative chances are taken.

Ensconced on a Washington island, Buell Neidlinger has little to no motivation to venture out into a jazz marketplace he concluded to be knuckleheaded more than a half-century ago. It's unsurprisingly, then, that the bassist's first CD in years is a 1987 concert recording, or that it documents a festival performance in Italy, where Neidlinger most frequently toured. Considered too flawed for release at the time, it languished for years in the vaults of K2B2, the label Neidlinger has operated with multi-instrumentalist Marty Krystall since the LP era; only recently has software innovations allowed Krystall to restore the tape adequately for release.The headline is that the CD features a rare reunion of Neidlinger and Steve Lacy, members of Cecil Taylor's original quartet; although Neidlinger played on Lacy's first two Prestige albums and with the "School Days" quartet, it has been assumed that they did not perform together after the soprano saxophonist moved to Europe. That probably crossed the mind of Ravenna Jazz's producer, prompting the pairing. Given the pick-up nature of the gig, Monk was an obvious choice for the set. In addition to the inclusion of "Skippy" and "Reflections," which were included on Lacy's watershed '58 all-Monk album, the pairing of Lacy with Krystall's tenor promised to evoke Lacy's short stint sharing the front line with Charlie Rouse in Monk's band.Instead of appropriating Rouse's jocular swing, however, Krystall is on a mission to burn the house down from the opening head of "Skippy." There's a sense of this conveyed through the CD tray card photo, which shows Lacy intently watching Krystall solo and readying himself for the next volley. Despite the cutting contest atmosphere, their complementary flourishes on "Reflections" and their blend on "Epistrophy" reveal Krystal and Lacy, who himself is in top form, to be a compatible front line, one that could have yielded even greater results had it been cultivated over time.The real revelation of the set, however, is pianist Brenton Banks, who understands that access to the essence of Monk's music is through the melodies. Additionally, he taps that essence without wholesale appropriation of Monk's piano style; instead, his romping chromatic runs on "Skippy" and sparkling sweeps of the keyboard on "Reflections" are closer to what pan-stylists like Kenny Barron or John Hicks might do with the material. His real art, arguably, is as an accompanist; he always knows when a horn solo will peak and he's there first with just the right emphasis, his phrasing also creating niches that Neidlinger and drummer Billy Osborne deftly fill.Unfortunately, Neidlinger's sound is somewhat choked throughout the set by the bass mic, diminishing the poignancy of his solo on "Reflections," which relies on his normally space-soaking long notes for much of its emotional gravity. Still, this is a very welcomed album.

All Monk sessions became something of a cliche after the master's death in 1982 and the contemporaneous rise of the so-called New Lions with their canonical leanings. Many of those offerings, most even, shortcutted through Monk's difficulties by focusing on his more conventional and, hence more popular, tunes, which could after the head be turned into a round of solos on the blues or rhythm changes. Though this historic date comes from that period there's none of that here. A glance at the names Neidlinger and Lacy in the personnel assures the listener that Monk's music is in good hands. Lacy, of course, has been a prime proponent, scholar, and interpreter of Monk's music, and Neidlinger is a long-time devotee as well. Working with regular Neidlinger collaborators, this session does justice to the music. Neidlinger and cohorts bring it to life while remaining true to its genius. The contrast between Lacy and tenor saxophonist Marty Krystall is striking. Lacy is ever so soulfully analytic, digging deep into the crevices and twists of the music, fashioning personal statements by manipulating and filtering the eccentric materials Monk offers. Lacy's solo on the opening, "Skippy," is a masterfrul dissection. Krystall is more rambunctious, bringing the force of his instrument's tradition to bear on the tunes at hand. His boisterous "Little Rootie Tootie" swings fiercely, and evinces a playfulness so appropriate to the song. Pianist Brenton Banks seems as rooted in the craggy terrain, avoiding both conventional piano figurations and Monkish cliches. His "Reflections" spot gushes forth with two-fisted romanticism. Neidlinger is the driving force, delivering some striking solos and working with drummer Billy Osborne to propel the quintet. Unfortunately the audio quality is only fair, and with the drummer and the bass suffering the most, Neidlinger's bass at times is ruduced to his jangling upper register. While the sound is regrettable, the session is still listenable and the high quality of the performances certainly makes amends.

Marty Krystall is a brilliant saxophonist who can emulate both Ben Webster and Eric Dolphy while still sounding like himself. Although he spent quite a few years in the studios, his jazz improvising skills have continued to develop and he is a very powerful player who also knows the value of space, subtlety and dynamics.
Herbie Nichols, a very original but much-neglected pianist and composer during his relatively brief lifetime, has been having his music discovered on a gradual basis during the past 25 years. Plays Herbie Nichols features Krystall (on tenor, bass clarinet and soprano), pianist Hugh Schick, bassist Jack Bone, drummer Barry Saperstein and occasionally violinist Brenton Banks performing six Nichols songs plus an adaptation of a Bizet work, “Suite From Carmen.” The latter piece has Schick switching to trumpet and Banks filling in on piano. The Nichols works generally feature picturesque themes, unusual lengths of choruses (try counting the bars in “Every Cloud”) and challenging chord changes that have their own original brand of logic.
Krystall, with his large tone and exuberant style, sounds as effortless on these complex pieces as Johnny Griffin did when he worked regularly with Thelonious Monk in 1958, ripping through the chord changes while adding wit and joy to the music.
Originally recorded in 1999 as the soundtrack to the video Marty Krystall Quartet Plus One (though some of the music differs from what is on the videocassette), the performances are exciting and well worth hearing.
It is easily recommended and available from www.k2b2.com.

REVIEW FROM “AVANT FRONT”
http://avantfront.wordpress.com/2007/01/06/marty-krystall-plays-herbie-nichols-k2b2-3469/
BY JOAKIM MILDER 01/06/07
Marty Krystall, Plays Herbie Nichols (K2B2 3469)

This record is somewhat of a perfect storm for a bleeding heart like me. It features the compositions of neglected composer Herbie Nichols, whose life was cut short by leukemia before fame really came his way. It’s on a very independent label, which, according to Google Maps, is headquartered in somebody’s house. It was recorded directly to 2-track on a very expensive microphone. And it closes with “Suite from Carmen” arranged by Marty Krystall as a tribute to Nichols. What’s not to like?

Honestly, not much. The playing is at a high level, especially by the drummer, Barry Saperstein who fills the space with a hard-driving busy pulse, which, thanks to the Neumann USM-69, includes a visceral punch. Krystall, who plays tenor, soprano, and bass clarinet, is a player who is most interesting when he finds a clever phrase and carries it through the changes while daring Saperstein to push him somewhere else. The tunes are labyrinthine and quirky. Nichols’s writing is somewhat similar to Monk’s, but Nichols seems to leave more space for the rest of the band to participate in the heads, and the AllMusic guide lists Bartók and West Indian folk music as influences. I might not be sophisticated enough to pick that up, but the tunes are great fun. They will, with the time necessary for such cerebral compositions, get in your head.

The disc is not without its problems, however. The “Suite from Carmen” is an adventurous arrangement that steals the show. Perhaps the piece is more to my style than Nichols’s compositions. I find this the most compelling piece, and Krystall’s playing is best here, when he isn’t forced to fall back on bop conventions. The other caveat I have is with the sound, the instruments that do come in clear come in wonderfully. As they should with this type of set up. But, I think a little more attention needs to be paid to the violin and piano sound. They are both very distant in the recording, and with the philosophy behind the technique, nothing can be done with that after the recording is made. I think those problems needed to be dealt with in sound check. Perhaps they were, and this was the best outcome possible. If that is true, I would remove this quibble, as I admire the independent spirit and obvious dedication to this project. It is not often that one can be introduced to two first-class musicians on one recording, but Plays Herbie Nichols should promote wider exposure of both its leader and its subject. Two good things in my book. (This recording can be purchased directly from K2B2, or from Cadence)

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 6th, 2007 at 4:05 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

“West Coast native Buell Neidlinger is joined by some excellent musicians here on an album that delves into some more “modern” sounds with generally good results. We can’t think of another record that contains material as diverse as DeFord Bailey, Bill Monroe and Thelonious Monk, but the fact that it works is a tribute to the material itself as well as some imaginative picking by the artists, who include fiddlers Richard Greene, Darol Anger and Robert Bowlin. The disc features 3 or 4 cuts each by hitherto obscure groups named the Muffinlickers, The Ratchet Brothers, The Stringlickers, and Buellgrass-1982. The one constant is Neidlinger, who plays either cello or bass on all the tunes. Most traditional of these combos is the Ratchet Brothers, a trio that includes Robert Bowlin and Danny Barnes—their tracks include a solid & pretty straight version of Bill Monroe’s LEFT ON THE STREET. Greene & Anger’s twin fiddles join with Neidlinger’s interesting cello work for a quite successful version of OLD DANGERFIELD and the bluesy NEW ORLEANS TO MISSISSIPPI, and Greene’s fiddling is also heard on a nice version of DANNY BOY as well as tunes from Jazz giants Ornette Coleman and Thelonious Monk. Ruthie Dornfeld and Paul Elliot (Stringlickers) put forth some very nice sounds on HORSESHOE BEND (an old Stripling Brothers tune) and EVENING PRAYER BLUES (from DeFord Bailey)—these all aided by the cello of Neidlinger as well.... ”

Bassist/cellist and producer Buell Neidlinger goes beyond being eclectic with All Strung Out: Adventures in Buellgrass,
melding instrumental interpretations of little-known bluegrass gems by Bill Montoe and “new acoustic” reworkings of jazz pieces by Thelonious Monk and Ornette Coleman. Culled from more than 20 years of recordings,this 13-track compendium showcases Neidlinger’s playing in a variety of settings. His innovative bass playing is heard on tracks recorded in 1982 with Buellgrass, featuring Andy Statman (mandolin), Richard greene (violin), and Peter Erskine (drums). His cello is featured on pieces recorded in 1996 with the Muffinlickers, featuring Greene and Darol Anger on violins, and in 2005 with the Stringlickers, featuring Ruthie Dornfeld and Paul Elliot on violinis. On either instrument, Neidlinger’s mastery is evident. (CH)

At 31, Chico Freeman-tenor saxophone, bass clarinet, and other reeds-has emerged as one of the unmistakeable classic horns among the new jazz generation. Moreover, as Amiri Baraka emphasizes in the notes to Chico's current release, The Outside Within (India Navigation), Freeman, unlike some of his contemporaries, "has found a way to be clearly meIodic and musically swinging, yet searching, daring and experimental." He goes inside and outside the chords; he can so shout that he seems to be speaking in tongues and yet he can also get subtly, sensuously inside a ballad in a way that mesmerizes both those unfamiliar with jazz and the cognoscenti.

All these qualities are powerfully evident in The Outside Within in such pervasively riveting pieces as "Undercurrent," "The Search," "Luna," and "Ascent." Each one charts fresh terrain while remaining rooted in the entire continuum of jazz (for Chico has deeply knowledgeable roots). Brilliantly complementing his penetratingly authoritative sound and time are drummer Jack DeJohnette, bassist Cecil McBee, and pianist John Hicks who creates here some of his most inventive work on record.

The recorded sound sets a new standard for India Navigation, and ought to be heard by other engineers as well. The wide, vivid, thrusting range of Chico's horns and the explosive density of the rhythm section are fully caught in all their fire and glory.

Much less known, as yet, than Freeman is Marty Krystall, a Los Angeles based tenor saxophonist who has strong backgrounds in both jazz and classical music (he has toured, for example with Peter Serkin's Tashi, a chamber ensemble). But Krystall is no "third stream" fisher in both waters when he plays jazz. In Ready for the 90's (K2B2 Records), Krystall's tenor is wholly, exhilaratingly, leapingly immersed in what could be called postmodern jazz. His sound is roomfilling, capable of an extraordinary gamut of colors. And his command of rhythm, layer upon layer of rhythm, is continually, authentically exciting.

Like Chico Freeman, Krystall is so clear in everything he conceives and executes that, as far out as he goes, he never loses you. This has also long been the case with co-leader Buell Neidlinger. It might seem odd to call Neidlinger a "new master" in view of his remarkable career in jazz (Johnny Hodges, Cecil Taylor, Billie Holiday, Zoot Sims, et al.). But the prowess of this singular bassist and musical thinker is only just beginning to become recognized.

Also strikingly present are trumpeter Warren Gale, drummer Billy Higgins; and on one 1961 track, Cecil Taylor. The engineering is excellent. As on the Chico Freeman session, the broad scope of dynamics and the continually changing textures are all present, in rightful place.

CHICO FREEMAN: The Outside Within. [Bob Cummins, producer, David Baker, engineer.] India Navigation IN 1042.

MARTY KRYSTALL, BUELL NEIDLINGER: Ready for the 90's. [Marty Krystall and Buell Neidlinger, producers, no information on the engineer.] K2B2 Records 2069. (Distributed by North Country Distributors - Redwood N.Y. 13679.)

This Way Is West Reviews

This debut recording by Krystall Klear and the Buells came as quite a surprise to me. I must admit I didn't know just what to expect, since my first exposure to their music was in person several years ago when Krystall and Neidlinger were performing sporadically around Los Angeles. They were, to put it mildly, very avant garde in those days. Therefore, I imagined that they must be almost off the planet by now- especially with that cryptic title: Ready For The '90s.

What emerges, however, is a thoroughly engaging program with a consistently high level of musicianship. Krystall and Neidlinger have been musical compadres for many years now, and their musical familiarity is evident throughout. Neither of these musicians has enjoyed the exposure that their talents and dedication to jazz deserve. Neidlinger's credits are many and varied, having backed Coleman Hawkins and Johnny Hodges in their later days, Cecil Taylor (who is featured on one track of this album) in his earliest ones, in addition to such major pop artists as Barbra Streisand, The Temptations, and Dolly Parton. It is obvious, though, from Ready For The '90s that Neidlinger's (and indeed Krystall's) first love is jazz. There are elements of hard bop, the blues, free form, and even a touch of latin.

P.O. stands out as the oldest cut, written by Neidlinger and recorded in 1961 "to give Cecil Taylor an opportunity to play the 12 bar blues.Of the remaining four cuts Krystall shines (pardon the pun) predominantly. On the opening I GOr's BLUEs, trumpeter Warren Gale and Krystall weave in and out of each other-sometimes clashing-and then take off on their own trips. Gale's tone is pure and clear, and his control of the instrument is marvelous. However, anyone looking for lots of warmth and mellowness won't find too much here: the sounds are angular, stabbing, and often quite harsh.

The quasi Latin feel in Like Latin/Synapse (actually two compositions of Krystall's in a medley) is an unusual feature for this type of group. The operative word is '`like," for the pulse barely resembles a latin beat. However, even that minute nod to South American rhythms has Krystall reminiscent of the calypsoish Sonny Rollins. Krystall's drive and attack are not unlike Sonny's, and the younger man seems to be taking those formative tenor explorations even one step further. Neidlinger provides a steady, walking bass line, remaining highly sensitive to Krystall's meanderings along the way Meanwhile, Gale has much of importance to say. His full, open style makes good use of the space provided by the composer. His flow of musical ideas is endless and always interesting, and his interplay with Krystall is a good example of two minds with a single thought, their separate improvisations often coming miraculously into unison.

The old Dizzy Gillespie standard Night In Tunisia has been resurrected here as Modern Gizz, almost nine minutes of exploring inside, outside, and all around this familiar theme. Everyone takes a solo, and Billy Higgins exemplifies his highly imaginative, ingenious drumming style. He and Neidlinger provide a constant cushion upon which the two horns buoy themselves. Gale gives the impression of being a Gillespie disciple-displaying more of the master's spirit than individual technique or style.

The final track, Cecil (named by composer Neidlinger for his frequent collaborator Taylor), opens with bass lines offsetting some outlandish tenor/trumpet configurations, and Higgins using the entire spectrum of his drum set. Although what comes out is quite cacophonous, there's a definite sense of direction apparent. Each instrumentalist is playing with each other, giving the effect of a fiveway conversation: each voice striving to be heard, but not at the expense of another's.

Though this album may not be everybody's cup of avant garde tea, it's far more exciting than most of the triedandtrue jazz of the 1980s so far. Krystall Klear and the Buells offer a perfect opportunity to join in some navigations into uncharted territory.

-Frankie Nemko-Graham

 CODA MAGAZINE, ISSUE 178 (1981)

"Ready for the 90s'' - Krystall Klear and the Buells (K2B2 2069)

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

KRYSTALL KLEAR AND THE BUELLS
This Way Is West (K2B2)

Krystall Klear and the Buells is the eponym tenor saxophonist Marty Krystall and bassist Buell Neidlinger gave their ’70s and ’80s collaboration, a partnership that produced the two LPs reissued here: Ready for the ’90s and Our Night Together. I remember those LPs being well received back then by critics paying attention. I also remember Krystall and Neidlinger not getting as much ink as some of the more high-profile avant-gardists. Certainly their music wasn’t to blame. Their spiky, swing-and-groove-based free jazz was as good as anything then being done.

An early cohort of Cecil Taylor, the conceptually pliable Neidlinger is arguably the finest bassist ever employed by the pianist. Krystall is a fluent, inventive saxophonist with a huge tone and regulated sense of aggression. The leaders are joined on the CD’s first half by the peerless drummer Billy Higgins, trumpeter Warren Gale and—on one track—by Taylor himself. The second half features a pre-Weather Report Peter Erskine on drums and Hammond organist Jerry Peters. The latter group is a bit funkier, but frankly, one’s as good as the other. It’s all terrific, as fresh today as it was 20-odd years ago.

-Chris Kelsey

This Way Is West Reviews

By Nat Hentoff

At 31, Chico Freeman-tenor saxophone, bass clarinet, and other reeds-has emerged as one of the unmistakeable classic horns among the new jazz generation. Moreover, as Amiri Baraka emphasizes in the notes to Chico's current release, The Outside Within (India Navigation), Freeman, unlike some of his contemporaries, "has found a way to be clearly meIodic and musically swinging, yet searching, daring and experimental." He goes inside and outside the chords; he can so shout that he seems to be speaking in tongues and yet he can also get subtly, sensuously inside a ballad in a way that mesmerizes both those unfamiliar with jazz and the cognoscenti.

All these qualities are powerfully evident in The Outside Within in such pervasively riveting pieces as "Undercurrent," "The Search," "Luna," and "Ascent." Each one charts fresh terrain while remaining rooted in the entire continuum of jazz (for Chico has deeply knowledgeable roots). Brilliantly complementing his penetratingly authoritative sound and time are drummer Jack DeJohnette, bassist Cecil McBee, and pianist John Hicks who creates here some of his most inventive work on record.

The recorded sound sets a new standard for India Navigation, and ought to be heard by other engineers as well. The wide, vivid, thrusting range of Chico's horns and the explosive density of the rhythm section are fully caught in all their fire and glory.

Much less known, as yet, than Freeman is Marty Krystall, a Los Angeles based tenor saxophonist who has strong backgrounds in both jazz and classical music (he has toured, for example with Peter Serkin's Tashi, a chamber ensemble). But Krystall is no "third stream" fisher in both waters when he plays jazz. In Ready for the 90's (K2B2 Records), Krystall's tenor is wholly, exhilaratingly, leapingly immersed in what could be called postmodern jazz. His sound is roomfilling, capable of an extraordinary gamut of colors. And his command of rhythm, layer upon layer of rhythm, is continually, authentically exciting.

Like Chico Freeman, Krystall is so clear in everything he conceives and executes that, as far out as he goes, he never loses you. This has also long been the case with co-leader Buell Neidlinger. It might seem odd to call Neidlinger a "new master" in view of his remarkable career in jazz (Johnny Hodges, Cecil Taylor, Billie Holiday, Zoot Sims, et al.). But the prowess of this singular bassist and musical thinker is only just beginning to become recognized.

Also strikingly present are trumpeter Warren Gale, drummer Billy Higgins; and on one 1961 track, Cecil Taylor. The engineering is excellent. As on the Chico Freeman session, the broad scope of dynamics and the continually changing textures are all present, in rightful place.

CHICO FREEMAN: The Outside Within. [Bob Cummins, producer, David Baker, engineer.] India Navigation IN 1042.

MARTY KRYSTALL, BUELL NEIDLINGER: Ready for the 90's. [Marty Krystall and Buell Neidlinger, producers, no information on the engineer.] K2B2 Records 2069. (Distributed by North Country Distributors - Redwood N.Y. 13679.)

This Way Is West Reviews

This debut recording by Krystall Klear and the Buells came as quite a surprise to me. I must admit I didn't know just what to expect, since my first exposure to their music was in person several years ago when Krystall and Neidlinger were performing sporadically around Los Angeles. They were, to put it mildly, very avant garde in those days. Therefore, I imagined that they must be almost off the planet by now- especially with that cryptic title: Ready For The '90s.

What emerges, however, is a thoroughly engaging program with a consistently high level of musicianship. Krystall and Neidlinger have been musical compadres for many years now, and their musical familiarity is evident throughout. Neither of these musicians has enjoyed the exposure that their talents and dedication to jazz deserve. Neidlinger's credits are many and varied, having backed Coleman Hawkins and Johnny Hodges in their later days, Cecil Taylor (who is featured on one track of this album) in his earliest ones, in addition to such major pop artists as Barbra Streisand, The Temptations, and Dolly Parton. It is obvious, though, from Ready For The '90s that Neidlinger's (and indeed Krystall's) first love is jazz. There are elements of hard bop, the blues, free form, and even a touch of latin.

P.O. stands out as the oldest cut, written by Neidlinger and recorded in 1961 "to give Cecil Taylor an opportunity to play the 12 bar blues.Of the remaining four cuts Krystall shines (pardon the pun) predominantly. On the opening I GOr's BLUEs, trumpeter Warren Gale and Krystall weave in and out of each other-sometimes clashing-and then take off on their own trips. Gale's tone is pure and clear, and his control of the instrument is marvelous. However, anyone looking for lots of warmth and mellowness won't find too much here: the sounds are angular, stabbing, and often quite harsh.

The quasi Latin feel in Like Latin/Synapse (actually two compositions of Krystall's in a medley) is an unusual feature for this type of group. The operative word is '`like," for the pulse barely resembles a latin beat. However, even that minute nod to South American rhythms has Krystall reminiscent of the calypsoish Sonny Rollins. Krystall's drive and attack are not unlike Sonny's, and the younger man seems to be taking those formative tenor explorations even one step further. Neidlinger provides a steady, walking bass line, remaining highly sensitive to Krystall's meanderings along the way Meanwhile, Gale has much of importance to say. His full, open style makes good use of the space provided by the composer. His flow of musical ideas is endless and always interesting, and his interplay with Krystall is a good example of two minds with a single thought, their separate improvisations often coming miraculously into unison.

The old Dizzy Gillespie standard Night In Tunisia has been resurrected here as Modern Gizz, almost nine minutes of exploring inside, outside, and all around this familiar theme. Everyone takes a solo, and Billy Higgins exemplifies his highly imaginative, ingenious drumming style. He and Neidlinger provide a constant cushion upon which the two horns buoy themselves. Gale gives the impression of being a Gillespie disciple-displaying more of the master's spirit than individual technique or style.

The final track, Cecil (named by composer Neidlinger for his frequent collaborator Taylor), opens with bass lines offsetting some outlandish tenor/trumpet configurations, and Higgins using the entire spectrum of his drum set. Although what comes out is quite cacophonous, there's a definite sense of direction apparent. Each instrumentalist is playing with each other, giving the effect of a fiveway conversation: each voice striving to be heard, but not at the expense of another's.

Though this album may not be everybody's cup of avant garde tea, it's far more exciting than most of the triedandtrue jazz of the 1980s so far. Krystall Klear and the Buells offer a perfect opportunity to join in some navigations into uncharted territory.

-Frankie Nemko-Graham

Flowers Pluck Themselves / Little RootieTootlie / Buejerk / When It Drips, It's Ready / Blues In White / Ben Addiction / Peete's Boogie. 5/14/81. Cum. Pers.: Marty Krystall, ten sax, b cl, vcl; Buell Neidlinger, b; Peter Erskine, d; Jerry Peters, org; Gene Cipriano,ts, b ob.

Buell Neidlinger has had a diverse career: symphony bassist, rock 'n' roller and undoubtedly the only improviser ever to record both with Cecil Taylor and David Grissman. Such a background might drive a person whacky, and this LP suggests that might have happened. But that's okay - "Our Night Together" works best at its goofiest. The highlight is a union of Monk's "Rootie Tootie" that's so jaunty it's almost inane.

Saxist Marty Krystall has a tone so brawny it almost barks; he bridges Ayleresque shouts and r&b honks, and he can play. His falsetto and split tone control are enviable. The core unit of him and Buell and Weather Report's Peter Erskine have excellent rapport, Buell's hyperactive witty walking and Erskine's fine, rolling drumming light the fire under Krystall, and off he goes.

Genuinely inane but no less effective is the tongue-in cheek, funk ode to Folger's coffee, "When It Drips, It's Ready," fueled byJerry Peters' swells and swirls at a Hammond B3. Peter's Jimmy Smith-Carla Bley synthesis - slightly zany but totally functional - spices a couple of other cuts as wall, including a slow blues that happily gets out of hand.

Tenorist Gene Cipriano pins Marty for siamese-twin unison playing on the head of Krystall's delightfully intricate bop tune, "Ben Addiction." Really the only tracks that don't quite come off are the opener and the closer: "Flowers," a serious free ballad that fails pull together, end "Pete's, Boogie," an inconclusive, darkly meandering piece (with Cipriano's bass oboe) on which Erskine takes over for a few minutes of unfocussed boiling. But why nitpick7 This unit is understatedy whimsical without being glib or shallow , and the playing's hot. You can't ask for much nore than that.

-Kevin Whitahead

Marty Krystall and Buell Neidllnger's first K2B2 recording, (Mar. '81, p. 54) found the two in partnenhip with trumpeter Warren Gale and drummer Billy Higgins, and received a wry positive review ("a very strong document"). This new one serves to reinforce that positive response. Although personnel is different (the trio of Krystall, Neidlinger, and Erskine is heard on the first two tracks; organist Peters is added on the next three; and Cipriano joins the three for the last two), the overall feeling of unabashed exuberance and joy of creating music is consistent throughout. Krystall is a robust tenor player who projects a strong openess in his playing. Many of the pieces have a sense of the blues that Krystall seems most attuned to. The one exception is the final track- an invocational piece using bass clarinet, bass oboe, arco bass, and percussion (whatever "boogie" there is in the piece is lost on me). My only quibble with the recording is the organ contribution of Peters on "Buejerk"; for me, it just doesn't fit in very well. Nevertheless. this can be recommended for all interested in expressive and dedicated music making.

-Carl Brauer

 In interviews (6/86), Buell Neidlinger is brazenly arrogant, a supremely talented fellow who challenges you to catch him fucking up. So it seemed a surprise he'd appear to hop on the Monk bandwagon. The flood of Monk tributes has ultimately proved rather dispiriting since the vast majority of Monk covers have missed the point that it's less why you play than how you play it. A Steve Lacv cut chosen at random will pay more eloquent tribute to Thelonious than Joe Jackson or Donald Fagen playing one of his songs.

Neidlinger's Thelonious does indeed seem inspired by the Monk fad; it's as if he's heard enough and wants to silence the pretenders with an objec lesson. This is how Monk played: with the lively tub-thumping rhythmic bottom Monk's quartet had, but with its own ensemble flavor.

The vexing thing about playing Monk correctly is that you have to bend some in his direction (but not too far). If the genius of his compositions was how seamlessly they flowed in to and out of his improvising, then a band pianist like John Beasley, hoping to emulate the same integration of heads with solos, may sensibly adopt some of Monk's stride/splank piano gestures - just as the Buell's plump bass walks and Osborne's authoritative mini-kit thumping show respect for Monk's rhythm men. Yet none of the three gives up his own identity and resorts to impersonating a predecessor.

We used to read the curious argument that Monk was a great pianist but that anyone who adopted quirks plainly derived from his were misguided - as if pianists were to be denied the same fun, or as if the writers heard Monk's music so badly they couldn't understand how its elements could be abstracted. Now the Monkish individualists are everywhere, from Stan Tracey and Andrew Hill to Terry Adams and John Beasley.

Thelonious sounds Monkian without sounding like Monk. Krystall's tongue-in-cheek saxophonevoice is perfect for the composer's Charles Addams melodies, yet the way he sculpts the pitch of each note is his own. But perhaps most gratifying about Thelonious is how directly they confront Monk the composer. Krystall's slithering emphasizes Nellie 's serpentine twists; the whole band gives Jackie-ing. a brittle percussive edge." Locomotive" and"Who Knows" are characteristic Monk but seldom played.

Still, despite successes like this one, I'd vote for a Monk recording moratorium. Living composers (Andrew Hill for one) deserve similar tribute and study-now, while it'll do them some good.

Kevin Whitehead

Herbie Nichols would be amazed by what these three musicians have created on The Happenings: his innovative music certainly deserves such inventive treatment.

I am glad to have received from Los Angeles clarinetist Marty Krystall the somewhat off-the-beaten track 2009 release, Silver Screen in Blue for clarinet and strings. Mr. Krystall is a long-time wind doubler in the LA film, television, and jazz world. A player at home in classical, jazz, and many popular styles, he can be heard on hundreds of Hollywood movie and television scores. He has frequently toured in the U.S. and Europe, and has recorded with artists as far-ranging as Aretha Franklin and Tashi (the Webern Quartet for violin, clarinet, tenor saxophone, and piano).
This disc presents arrangements of music of eight motion pictures from the “Golden Age” of movies, with no living composer represented. The arrangements, for solo clarinet, double string quartet, bass, and harp, are by the distinguished composer/arranger/ orchestrator (and former clarinetist) John Neufeld, who also conducts the ensemble in this release. These arrangements are rich in harmonic interest, spiced with counterpoint and jazz harmony, effectively structured, and intelligent in detail. A project of this kind could have easily resulted in a soloist display with some (quite frankly), cheesy accompaniments. Such is not the case here. Neufeld does not use a cookie-cutter approach from track to track, recognizing the varying characteristics among these tunes.
The music programmed is: “Love Theme” from Spartacus (Alex North); Invitation (Bronislav Kaper); Black and Tan Fantasy (Duke Ellington); The Bad and the Beautiful (David Raksin); “Theme” from The Best Years of Our Lives (Hugo Friedhofer); Two for the Road (Henry Mancini); Over the Rainbow (Harold Arlen); “Fantasy on Themes” from Anthony Adverse (Erich Wolfgang Korngold). With the exception of the Korngold “Fantasy” (an almost twelve-minute piece), the arrangements are in the four-to-six-minute time range.
It is clear from the arrangements and the clarinet playing that both Neufeld and Krystall are seasoned jazz musicians. All the tracks exhibit a moderate to strong jazz character, and Krystall plays with a rich sound, smooth technique, and with tasty inflections which the rather wide variety of material demands of him, from simple lyrical character to active virtuosic solos. In Invitation and Anthony Adverse Krystall is given solo cadenzas which he impressively delivers. Although solo jazz choruses appear throughout this disc, I believe that none of the improvisational-sounding material is improvised, but is well- written by John Neufeld, who is apparently a stickler for detail and who weaves these pieces into a kind of jazz chamber music. He dispenses with the piano/bass/drums rhythm section, so the time keeping is totally notated in the ensemble.
There are no weak arrangements or performances on this disc, but certain tracks which seem to work the best for this writer are Kaper's Invitation, David Raksin's The Bad and the Beautiful, and Mancini's Two for the Road, the latter two in part perhaps because they are widely familiar tunes. Neufeld's arrangement of Arlen's Over the Rainbow is imaginative and rich in detail, and much more effective than anticipated. The first hearing of the Korngold Anthony Adverse track was a surprise and pleasant discovery to hear unexpectedly yet another tune known to this writer. The composer's beautiful main theme from the “Romance” movement of his 1945 Violin Concerto was lifted from his 1936 film score.
Silver Screen in Blue is a delightful and somewhat unusual diversion which may very well appeal to many clarinetists. The recorded sound is a close-up studio perspective which is detailed and natural, if a bit on the dry side. It supplies a variety of moods, with ballads and up-tempo tunes to make for a seemingly short 46-minute listening experience, and it may also prick some fresh programming interest among our readers. The release is from K2B2 RECORDS 3869 and is available from k2b2.com.

"It has energy, professionalism, passion, and sophistication. Or should I just say, it's very, very hip."

Marty Krystall has long been a legendary saxophonist in Southern California. While he has done extensive studio work and served his time in big bands, his own projects have really displayed his talents. On tenor, while naturally a bit influenced by John Coltrane, he has his own distinctive sound. The same can be said for his bass clarinet playing even if it is lovingly touched a little by Eric Dolphy. His great affection for the music of Thelonious Monk, Herbie Nichols and Duke Ellington has been consistent throughout his career as is his desire to constantly stretch himself, demanding the same of his sidemen.

       Krystall's projects for his K2B2 label (www.k2b2.com) have each been rewarding. Moments Magical, which teams him with bassist J.P. Maramba, drummer Sinclair Lott and drummer-percussionist Bob Conti, features him playing two Herbie Nichols songs (including Moments Magical which had never been recorded before), Monk's Brilliant Corners, the Theme From Exodus (a very different treatment than Eddie Harris' famous version) and four of his originals. The music is adventurous, often swings hard, and, in Moments Magical, Jungle Canopy, and Buejerk, includes songs that should be adopted by other musicians and turned into jazz standards.

Throughout Moments Magical, Marty Krystall plays with brilliance and creativity. His artistry and dedication to playing modern jazz deserve to be celebrated.

Five of the seven selections on this LP from the small K2B2 label features bassist Buell Neidlinger and tenor saxophonist Marty Krystall (who takes one piece on bass clarinet) playing in quartets with trombonist Glenn Ferris and either Billy Elgart or Deborah Fuss on drums; in one case keyboardist Don Preston is in Ferris' place. The music is post-bop (somewhere between hard bop and the avant-garde) and most notable for the fine playing of Krystall.

The Spirit of Albert Ayler hovers over this startling debut by Ivo Perelman, a gifted 29 year old from Sao Paulo, Brazil, who possesses one of the most distinctive and imposing tenor voices to come along in years. An impassioned player given to dramatic flights of out playing, his boundless energy, searching nature and searing falsetto register clearly place him in the Ayler - Pharoah Sanders camp. And that intensity is underscored by a strange Iyricism that invites the listener in even as it challenges.

On the album's opener, "Slaves of Jo" Ivo enters with a nod to Ayler, blowing a simple sing-songy line before totally deconstructing the piece and heading to higher ground urged on by Don Preston's dense block chords and Flora Purim's vocal prodding. Patitucci roams freely on electric six-string bass while Neidlinger and Erskine hold down the groove. They switch roles on the sparser "On The Street," where Erskine is allowed freedom to roam while the dual acoustic bassists anchor the piece and keep Ivo from sailing off into the ether.

The rambunctious reedman threatens to explode on "Tereza of Jesus", an energized waltz that features some virtuoso turns on acoustic bass by Patitucci along with some Cecil-styled clusters and rolling on the ivories by Preston. Preston often supplies a renegade edge to this project; particulary with his surreal synth work on "The Carnation and the Rose", a throbbing samba beat number that might be subtitled "Albert Ayler Goes To Carnival." And Ivo responds eagerly to such subversive cues.

On two duets with his hometown colleague, pianist Eliane Elias -- "The Day You Will Want Me" and Milton Nascimento's "Point Of Sand" - the saxophonist reveals a tender, romantic side. Other than that, it's full steam ahead into the stratosphere.

Sensational-the debutt of the year in jazz. What Kevin Whitehead says in the notes is inarguable: This program of children's songs from Brazil will make you rethink what you know about Brazillian music. Snoozy bosses. mellow crooners, bustling fusion - forget 'em.- Perelman is a young (29) tenor saxophonist whose sense of pitch is as venturesome as Alben Ayler's but, unlike Ayler. doesn't get caught using a vibrato wide enough to drive a DC-10 through. Perelman's music has the beseechments and passions of a high-octane "outside" player but with a sense of musical form conservative enough to keep listeners rapt for the whole trip. To celebrate his debut, Floria Purim and Airto, no less showed up to contribute the most creative and speculative music they've made m many years. Among other sidemen is former UB Creative Associate Buell Neidlinger.J.S.

The big surprise of this batch of records for me, however, is a brilliant set by Ivo

Pereleman, a Brazilian tenor saxophonist, who is caught in Ivo for K2B2 Records with Latino stars Airto, Flora Purim and Eliane Elias in a program of children's songs. Perelman is an original, who may remind some of Albert Ayler, but who has his own voice. His friends here collaboratein an expedition that is so imaginative that all questions of nationality or ethnicity fade into the background. This simply fine music.

Go. Go to the window and tell the crowd below, which has been clamoring so long for a Jewish tenor player from Brazil who imitates Albert Ayler, that its prayers have been answered. Where Ayler made up his own nursery rhymes and then blew them apart, however, Perelman works out on a selection of Brazilian children's songs in the company of some of the finest musicians producer Marty Krystall could dig up for him in L.A., including Airto (percussion), Flora Purim (voice), John Pattitucci (bass), Peter Erskine (drums), Don Preston (synth), Buell Neidlinger (bass) and Eliane Elias (piano). Perelman squeals! He pitch-bends! He plays bizarre lines outside tonal and chordal frameworks! All in the service of the Portuguese equivalent of "Frere Jacques"! How could you not like it? The backup band plays so crisply and joyously, it would be hard for Ivo to screw things up - though, to be honest, he's sometimes irritating anyway. At other moments he brings a damaged pathos to the proceedings that's touching, sounding less like Ayler than like Ornette Coleman or even Gato Barbieri. And on the final track, Milton Nascimento's "Ponta de Areia", he plays it perfectly straight and sincere, and you know what? It's beautiful.

What are some of the more profound and expansive qualities a discriminating layman (and open-eared sax fan) generally searches for in a musician he favors? Could it be the artist's mastery of his instrument or would the obsener gravitate more towards how the artist develops his concepts as to make them original and stimulating? Ivo Perelman is the kind of musician Illwho gives the listener ample opportunity to avoid making the aforementioned choice! His musicianship and constant creation of stimulating concepts are so closely aligned that they have a tendency to envelop each other.

This lets you, the listener, view Ivo's work as an entity, rather than to break it down into component parts. The result is immediate satisfaction and music that comes directly from the heart. To label this music would be a total sin, but I'll say this-"total involvement, from soul to universe" That's where this young giant of the tenor world is headed. The entire C.D. is one of deep sincerity! This talent of Ivo, fused with some of the most creative players in the business, such as Flora and Airto, the great legend Buell Neidlinger, plus Peter Erskine, Don Preston, Eliane Elias and John Pattituci epitomizes sheer brilliance.

This C.D. is a must for all ears. Buy it A.S.A.P., and it will enrich your life.Other than that, the other reason to hear this C.D. is, today more than ever, for the mixtures of music and the effect it has and its cultural exchange are so vital to creative instrumental music's lifeblood.

Contemporary directions with more than a touch of Brazilian flavor. All thc tunes will sweep your ears and minds into uncharted tropical waters. The first track, "Slaves of Jo" is hot and sizzling sax to the max. Looking for beautiful vocals? Check out "Nesta Rua, a mellow tune that's very inspirational!

A diverse set of original tunes with a unified feel is another positive aspect of Ivo's debut here. Check out his good use of vibrato as a means of varying the moods of the music, which is a hallmark of excellence itself! This is the kind of recording that contains lots of good listening. I've found myself many times listening to it over and over again due to Ivo's natural vigour and honest style. The album is also produced by another world class saxophonist, Marty Krystall.

Don't miss this one, it's a compassioned debut by a sexist enlightening our lives with his burning internal spirit!

We find Ivo Perelman in the company of fine musicians on his debut album. Ivo, Buell Neidlinger and John Patitucci team to form the 'bass section.' Eliane Elias and Don Preston handle the Keyboards. Flora Purim sings, and .Airto and Peter Erskine fill out the percussion and drums department. The recording is a collection ot'seven song,s. five of which are traditional Brazilian children's songs which have been arranged by Perelman to serve as improvisational springboards.

Perelman. Airto, Elias, and Purim are Brazilian, and the feel of the recording reflects this heritage. It swings in the sense that the players are solid, but there is no 2 and 4 backbeat here.

What do vou think of when vou hear the words "children's song"? Lyrical...singable...simple...? Well, the children s songs on this recording seem to be. and Perelman uses them. after stating the melodies. as a basis for improvisation. He lives up to the liner notes by Kevin Whitehead. who states that Perelman uses pitches creatively, as they. and sometimes whole phrases, "fall between the cracks of a scale." The emotions run the gamut on this recording, and Perelman takes us from serenity and child like resignation all the way to full-blown, free-form. screech-honk abandon, sometimes all of this between the silences that separate the tracks. The musicians on this project are world-class. and provide the support that allows Perelman to take off. As the melodies and vamps toss in my head. I do feel haunted-perhaps in the same way that I m haunted by the simultaneous innocence and depth of children.

"I really like this album. It's the best recording of the seven-string guitar I've ever heard."

2015 JAZZ ALBUM OF THE YEAR

What's left to say about Howard Alden? He's a brilliantly inventive and comprehensive guitarist with chops for days. He embodies the now clichéd assessment: "as modern as today but steeped in tradition." It is, however, true because Alden is the rare artist who's unaffected by time and trend.

Here, he presents an acoustic set of extraordinaryexplorations on his Benedetto 7-string. He recorded the set in just five hours with no more than two takes per tune, but in fact most of what you'll hear are first takes.

Alden carries on his mentor and sometime former duet partner, George Van Eps', legacy but is without question a pathfinder in his own right. Every player comes from someone else. It's the old "standing on the shoulders of giants," line, another cliché that's relevant because it's true. Van Eps called the guitar his "lap piano" and Alden's astute and artistic analysis avails himself of that assessment.

Alden says, "I've always been sort of a frustrate pianist, so what I try to do on the 7-string is find ways to bring out the things that you're able to hear clearly out of the piano on the guitar, and a lot of times it means leaving out some notes or choosing the right notes but still getting an impression of the pianistic approach rather than the guitarist approach." An homage here to his mentor is the guitarist's rendition of"Tango el Bongo" from Van Eps' classic, Mellow Guitar. "That'll teach you everything you need to know about the 7-string," says Alden. He intros the tune with "48," another brief Van Eps composition that's just 48 bars long.

Each performance is a highlight unto itself. My favorites are Jerome Kern's "The Folks Who Live on the Hill, "Ellington's "Dancers in Love" and "BlackBeauty," on which Alden is joined by cellist Buell Neidlinger. In fact, Neidlinger is a co-founder of the K2B2 label, one dedicated to serious music for serious listeners. Other standouts are the too seldom heard "Lotus Blossom," the great Billy Strayhorn tune, Django's "Tears", and Johnny Mercer's "My Shining Hour." But all the tracks are stellar and interesting. Alden is one of our finest artists and this effort is well worth finding. Highly recommended.

An in-demand player who can work in myriad styles and has an encyclopedic knowledge of music, Howard Alden has been called a "jazz young fogey". Self taught on the guitar, in his teens he began playing in a Southern California pizza parlor. Work followed regularly with Red Norvo, Dick Sudhalter, Woody Herman and often with Ruby Braff, whom he credits as a great mentor. By the ‘90s Alden was firmly established as a leading guitarist among the new generation.

Guitar is a solo session on which Alden can, with equal understanding, revitalize oldie "Just a Gigolo" and artfully play Thelonious Monk’s "Crepuscule With Nellie" or Duke Ellington’s "Single Petal of a Rose", evoking real feeling without ever settling for the merely sentimental. That is especially evident again with Billy Strayhorn’s "Lotus Blossom", a gem of tender melancholy. Bassist Buell Neidlinger calls Alden "a free player within the frameworks of the tunes that he chooses.... He’s GOING for it." Recorded in just five hours, almost all are first takes. Alden can be daring here in a way he can’t when part of a larger ensemble.

The opening rendition of Django Reinhardt’s swinger "Nagasaki" is a sizzler and his ability to swing briskly and simultaneously allow for some harmonic twists and moments of silence on "The Song is You". HaroldArlen’s "My Shining Hour" might serve as a capstone to this session, as Alden swings from the chamber melody ballad to uptempo fireworks and shows that his guitar is all he requires to deliver the goods.

Saxophonist and K2B2 label cofounder Marty Krystall named his inventive trio Mojave in honor of his southeastern California roots. There are frontier echoes as well in Krystall's whimsical leadoff track, "Theme from Gunsmoke." The nod to Sonny Rollin's Way Out West seems apparent, but Krystall's debt to the Rollins-Coltrane tenor tradition is clear enough from the music itself. His interplay with bassist J.P. Maramba and drummer sinclair Lott is volatile and deeply swinging, even as it mantains a controlled melodic focus.
      Krystall's tenor brings to mind the post-Coltrane-isms of Joe Farrell and Dave Liebman - free and exploratory, yet highly schooled over chord changes. His command of the bass clarinet points to Eric Dolphy, and his choice of repertoire by Jaki Byard and Herbie Nichols shows a love for straight-ahead jazz's more angular side.
      The sound, captured live to two-track with a single Neumann mic, is a bit bright. the drum timbre lacks nuance, and the bass, though beautiful on its own, loses definition in the full ensemble. Somehow these flaws are less apparent through headphones, although extra-close listening reveals a botched edit on the out-chorus of Byard's "Mrs. Parker of KC." The two sessions, taped roughtly a month apart, are panned rather differently, so the ears need to adjust.
      On the plus side, the trio's originals compare remarkably well with Nichols' "Terpsichore" and Thelonious Monk's "Ask Me Now." Maramba's "We've Heard it All Before," and Krystall's "Renovation Blues" and "Trinis Blues," are downright hummable.
      

Tenor saxophonist Marty Krystall and his acoustic Jazz trio Mojave provide an outstanding Jazz set characterized by both adventuresome and traditional qualities. Krystall is a strong musical voice on tenor and bass clarinet, bringing influences from Rollins, Coltrane, Dolphy, and conveying reverence for earlier Jazz and bebop artists. Possessing a wide expressive range, Krystall captures and extends the spirit and legacy of Ben Webster on "Ben Addiction," of Monk on "Ask Me Now," of Jaki Byard on "Mrs. Parker of KC," and of Herbie Nichols on "Terpsichore."

Krystall's more adventuresome side is displayed on his and drummer Sinclair Lott's "Duo at Diablo," as well as on the Nichols piece and generally throughout the program. Of special interest are bassist Maramba's "We've Heard It All Before," on which Krystall and the group evoke an interesting Mulligan meets Dolphy conception, and a rendition of "Gunsmoke" which includes an introduction done with care and a clever respect for the old TV western theme. Krystall, Maramba, and Lott are a like-minded musical unit throughout, with the very natural sound quality of the recording enhancing a fulfilling Jazz listening experience.

It happens more often lately that I have a "WOW" reaction to a release by someone I've never heard before. The unknowns come in two sizes--a young player trained by one of the increasing number of terrific jazz schools, or a veteran musician who doesn't tour and has seldom been recorded as a soloist. Marty Krystall fits the latter category. He was born in 1951, invites comparisons to the best tenors in jazz, and this is the first I've heard of him? Yup.

He's spent most of his career in LA, which probably has the most undiscovered wows of any city. They make a comfortable living as studio musicians, backing popular artists or making film and TV soundtracks. Actually, I have heard Marty Krystall. I just didn't know it. His hundreds of movie credits include X-Men, Forest Gump andThe Mummy Returns.

On this release he plays tenor and, most unusually since it's even touchier than the notoriously cranky soprano clarinet, a bass clarinet. Krystall's tenor tone is strong and clear, with a touch of sweetness and a vibrato that are more typical of an alto. His clarinet tone is aggressively masculine. His technique is clean and rhythmically sure at any speed on either instrument. The less-cantankerous tenor is his choice on seven of ten tracks.

The "Theme from Gunsmoke" gets things off to a Western-tinged start. There's humor in the selection and playing, but the trio swings with an intense, hard edge reinforced by the austere vibe of the pianoless combination. Sinclair Lott adds texture and color rather than just keeping time. J.P. Maramba provides a solid harmonic foundation, has a brief solo, and then a more visible role on "We've Heard It All Before," his own tune. Its catchy melody goes to the clarinet closely shadowed by bowed, then plucked bass. Both Krystall and Lott solo over walking base which then strides alone for a moment before the melody returns. The comfortable medium tempo is appropriate to the song's title.

"Ben Addiction" by Ben Webster begins with a tribute to that Swing-Era master and stays there most of the way, but Krystall updates the tune with post-bop touches throughout.

Jaki Byard's quirky "Mrs. Parker of KC" gets a treatment reminiscent of the bass-clarinet surprise leaps and harmonic substitutions of Eric Dolphy. And if you knew how I feel about Dolphy, you'd know what a compliment that is. Krystall gains further status in my eyes by including Monk's "Ask Me Now." His tenor sounds like it's making playful love to the tune.

If you've only heard Mr. Krystall in "Return of the Mummy" and "Forest Gump," you really need to get this album. Highly recommended.

One of Marty Krystall's current pursuits is Mojave, a trio with bassist J.P. Maramba and drummer Sinclair Lott. From the outset of their Way Out West-like workout on the theme from "Gunsmoke," they establish themselves as a unit that prods the material and each other at every turn. They put new light on well-known pieces like Monk's "Ask Me Now" and Herbie Nichols "Terpsichore" (a heated take on Jaki Byard's lesser known "Mrs. Parker of KC" rounds out a mid-album trio of pianist-penned compositions) by initially giving the melodies breathing room and then spooling out pungent choruses that stretch the contours of the respective compositions while reinforcing their original emotional intent.

Something of the same can be said of their blistering take on Ben Webster's "Ben Addiction;" but Mojave's taste for and insight into jazz's pantheon is a secondary agenda. Both Krystall and Maramba are fine writers who establish specific points of view on bedrock jazz principles with well-turned phrases and spark-shooting structural twists. Fortunately, the bassist's "We've Heard It All Before" doesn't live up to its name; a simultaneously playful and pensive tune that would fit Michael Moore like a glove, it gives Krystall an excellent platform to demonstrate the heat and elegance he can generate on bass clarinet. Krystall's "Blue Dunes," a delicious and thorough reworking of "Blue Skies" replete with a tom tom-tinged jazz exotica vamp, reiterates that the art of camouflage is as important as ever in jazz.

Still, the trio's respective resources as improvisers suggest that all they need to make an engaging recording is to have someone to click the record button. That's certainly the case with "Duo at Diablo," a simmering, freely improvised duet between Krystall and Lott, and the two back-to-back blues vehicles that end the album. Maramba sounds like he's cut from the same cloth as Neidlinger: excellent fundamentals, impeccable time, and razor-sharp responsiveness. Lott constantly feeds percolating cross-rhythms and solo-goosing embellishments in a thoroughly unobtrusive manner (some of the latter quality may be attributed to the one-point stereo recording, but probably not much). And Krystall is simply pungent throughout. There's nothing at all arid about Mojave.

This is a 1965 recording with Charles Gayle [ts] and John Bergamo [drm]. This is historically significant as it is Charles Gayle’s first recording a full 22 years prior to his led session, for Silkheart in 1988. So this predates the recorded appearance of Peter Brotzman and is parallel to Coltrane’s final group with Pharoah Sanders. I’ve tried to put myself back to 1965 and my feeling is this is equal to the vanguard of its time. The circumstances were at Neidlinger’s invitation the 3 went to Bergamo’s house in Buffalo, New York and with a borrowed tape recorder had themselves a session. The sound is more than passable and the music [a bass solo, Lonely Woman plus 3 original improvs-34:14] is quite fine. Historically important and good music.

Novembet 1995 Volume 62 - Number l l

Herbie Nichols ---- Love, Gloom, Cash, Love (Bethlehem 20-30112)

***

Buell Neidlinger -- Blue Chopsticks: A Portrait Of Herbie Nichols

(K2B2 3169)

****

Herbie Nichols (1919-1963) was a very original and neglected non-bebop modernist who lived in New York and played mostly with dixieland and swing-era artists. He made only six sessions as a leader; "Love, Gloom, Cash, Love" is his last-known recording, and it is not his best. (It should be mentioned, however, that the sound quality is uniformly exceDent, based on transfers from the original master takes.)

Stuck with an out of tune piano and having recorded many of his more accessible selections in better circumstances for Blue Note in 1955-56 (now sadly out of print), Nichols sounds clunky here. His solos reveal a strange mixture of Monk, Erroll Garner and Art Tatum, with melodic themes repeated, dissonant lines dropped in occasionally, chord' struck with a hard touch and many phrase ending glissandos a la Tatum. Some of his complex compositions, like "Portrait Of Ucha, and the title track, have a unique Iyricism. Others, such as "Argumentative," have a density that is difficult to penetrate. Still, this release is of unquestioned historical value.

Nichols' compositions, thorny as they were with their catchy twists and turns, were made for orchestration; indeed, the pianist often imagined his pieces played by horns and strings. Buell Neidlinger, who worked with the pianist, has taken the weightiness of his friend's work and both lightened it and given it zest with his unusual instrumentation. Blue Chopsticks packs punch, with all the instruments handling rhythm chores at one time or another. The album has a refreshing buoyancy, and a sense of verve and humor.

"Portrait Of Ucha" is now heard as a spirited German beer-hall piece, with Richard Greene's dancing violin backed by subtle horn howls while "The Gig" is done as a hoedown. The title tune has a rhythmic urgency, showcasing Marty Krystall's Webster-Rollins-Ayler tenor sax blend, which is uproarious but never brutal. Neidlinger's warm cello sparks "The Lady Sings The Blues," surely Nichols' best-known work. Hugh Schick's Bubber Miley-cum-Lester Bowie trumpet work adds flavor.

While hardly traditional fare, Blue Chopsticks is an exceedingly musical look at a deserving artist. –Zan Stewart

TENAFLY, NJ

SEP-OCT 1995

Monkish in his angularity and in his sly humor-he begins his "Blue Chopsticks" with a stuttering evocation of the "Chopsticks" we all know-the late pianist Herbie Nichols spent much of his career accompanying Dixieland groups. But he was an important, if underrecognized, bebopper. More than any other pianist in the early 50s, Nichols showed how Bud Powell's music could be taken in a direction different from hard bop: toward lightness, openness, even toward a sort of whimsical evasiveness. As we can hear on Thc Bcst of Hcrbie Nichols (Blue Note 99176 2 4), Nichols's own playing is fluid, carefully nuanced but unemphatic. He never wanders, and yet his improvisations, like is compositions. sound free, unbound by the more obviously exciting tension and logic of Bud Powell's music. His accents are not as strong, and his choice of notes makes him seem to skim over the chords. In all this, Nichols is probably an important precursor for the playing of Cecil Taylor. Miraculously, he seems totally without cliches, even the bop cliches that were just developing in the time he made his few recordings. Original, even eccentric, he was the composer of one tune that has become something of a jazz standard: "Lady Sings the Blues," which he wrote for Billie Holiday. Aside from that. he seems to have been almost totally forgotten, except by the musicians who knew him.

One of these, the distinguished bassist Buell Neidlinger, who has played with Cecil Taylor, Frank Zappa-and the Boston Symphony-has made a wonderful new disc in the pianist's honor: Blue Chopsticks: A Portrait of Herbie Nichols (K2 B2 Records 3169). Neidlinger collaborated with Nichols in the 50s in the trio led by 20s tenor star Bud Freeman. When in 1963, Nichols was dying, Neidlinger called the pianist and promised to make a recording of his music. Blue Chopsticks is the much delayed result. It's a curious, touching recording, that features Neidlinger on cello with Marty Krystall, reeds, Hugh Shick on various brass instruments and a violin and viola: Richard Greene, who sounds frequently like he stepped right out of a bluegrass band, and Jimbo Ross. It's instructive to go from Nichols's jumpy performance of "2300 Skidoo," with its tight phrases and sudden swirls and turns, to the swaggering performance of Neidlinger's crew. Blue Chopsticks is a sleeper.

by Gene Seymour

The only distortions on Blue Chopsticks /Buell Neidlinger Quintet [K2B2 Records] come from the musicians. Neidlinger's cello, Richard Greene's violin, Jimbo Ross' viola, Marty Krytall's reeds and Hugh Schick's horns grunt, weep, taunt and howl at the most unexpected times. Which is disorienting until one considers that this kind of idiosyncratic, mood-shifting whimsy is what compels about the music of Herbie Nichols, to which Neidlinger is paying tribute here.

Nichols, who died in 1963 of leukemia at age 44, was one of jazz's thwarted romantics. One hears a wounded quality in his compositions that both haunts and unsettles. Compared with modernist peers like Thelonious Monk, John Lewis and Horace Silver, Nichols remains as marginally known today as he was in his lifetime. (His best-known tune, "Lady Sings the Blues," became famous largely because of the thwarted romantic for whom it was written, Billie Holiday.) Still, the deeper you climb into Nichols' work, the more profound the rewards. Same goes for this album.

Neidlinger travelled with Nichols along the margins of the jazz mainstream in the mid-1950s when he was playing bass behind another piano-playing rebel named Cecil Taylor. His interpretations of such Nichols tunes as "2300 Skidoo," "Love, Gloom, Cash, Love," "Portrait of Ucha" and "Cro-Magnon Nights" are attentive to the composer's impulsetowards thematic subversion. The quintet's take on "The Gig," for instatnce, shifts into hoedown mode without harming - in fact, enhancing - the tune's droll jauntiness. Nichols, a bop-generation member who did much of his woodswhedding in dixieland bands, would have appreciated such wild juxtapositions. Neo-bop traditionalsts will probably sneer. But if they don't like their icons garlanded with bluegrass, they should mount their own Herbie Nichols tribute. Lord knows, he's got a lot more coming to him.

STEREOPHILE

SANTA FE, NM

OCTOBER 1995

Herbie Nichols, a contemporary of Monk, was a pianist-composer with a strangely unemphatic, elusive style. His career was obscure - he spent much of it playing with Dixieland bands, and, despite two records for Blue Note and a sprinkling of other recordings, he's best known today for his composition "Lady Sings the Blues."

Nonetheless, one of the most intriguing discs of 1995 so far has been bassist Buell Neidlinger's Blue Chopsticks (K2B2 3169), featuring Nichols' compositions in surprising arrangements, and with unexpected instrumentation. Richard Greene's bluegrass violin is prominently featured.

CMJ

NEW MUSIC REPORT / MUSIC MARATHON / NEW MUSIC MONTHLY

RHYTHM REVENGE

Bassists and especially drummers- usually consigned to the back of thestage, their names at the bottorn of the marquee, often dismissed as mere timekeepers - can be excused somewhat if, on their own albums, they tend to overplay and overrely on their own solos. The great ones, of course, never play too much; the great ones make others sound better than they actually are, elevating themselves in the process, Like the best bassists, BUELL NEIDLINGER is capable of keeping flawless time. But this master is a seer, never a subordinate - a virtuoso whose inventive solos are the match of any horn player's (as witnessed by his playing over the years with the likes of Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor and Frank Zappa). The bearded bassist not only keeps time, he keeps his word, and with Blue Chopsticks: A Portroit Of Herbie Nichols (K2B2, 1748 Roosevelt Ave., Los Angeles, CA '90006-5219 323,732.1602), he makes good on a promise he made some 30 years ago. The titular Nichols, the late pianist/composer whom Neidlinger calls "the greatest jazz melodist after Ellington," recorded a few trio albums as a leader, bur was largly overlooked during his lifeeime, and even after his death, until Mosaic released a boxed set of his recordings. Nichok and Neidlinger gigged together in the early '50s, and frequently woodshedded, perfonning the former's craggy, rhythmically ingenious tunes and wondering what they would sound like with strings and horns. During their last conversation, before Nichols' death in 1963. the bassist promised that someday he would record the pianist's music as discussed. He makes good on Blue Chopsticks, which features 11 Nichols compositions as performed by a quintet with Neidlinger (cello), Richard Greene (violin), Jimbo Ross (viola), Marty Krystall(reeds) and Hugh Schick (brass). It is a testimonial to Nichols' compositional genius, to say nothing of Neidlinger's interpretive savy, that the tunes Nichols recorded with piano, bass, and drums are redone - beautifully, swingfully, sincerely - with none of the original instrumentation.

Outstanding. Five stars. For a cool double play, cue up one of these numbers (try "2300 Skidoo") followed by a Nichols track from Blue Note's The Art Of Herbie Nichols compilation.

Gene Kalbacher is editor and publisher of Hot House, the monthly jazz night-life guide for the New York metropolitan area.

L . A . WEEKLY LOS ANGELES, CA SEP 8 1995

2300 Skidoo

Buell Neidlinger's omissions, commissions, fusions and fissions

BY GREG BURK

BUELL NEIDLINGER HAS AT LEAST THREE great talents: a talent for music, a talent for unprecedented artistic choices and a talent for pissing people off. From beginnings in the late-'50s avant~garde alongiside the man he reveres as "the great master of Amercan music," piano abstractionist Cecil Taylor, Neidlinger has allied his bass and cello with a wide range of styles, from free jazz to bluegrass to classical, and now frequently leads the bass sections on the soundtracks of movies like Pochahontas and Waterworld . Of ten in the Company of saxist Mary Krystall he has steered a number of his own projects, including Krystall Klear and The Buells, Buellgrass, Thelonious, and the Buell Neidlinger Quartet and Quintet, and released recordings associated with them, the latest of which is Blue Chopsticks: A Portrait of Herbie Nichols. He has encountered many of the lights of modern music, and has something bad to say about a lot of them.

Neidlinger has nothing bad to say about pianist Herbie Nichols, a gentle being whose delcate, innovative composing and playing skills have been rewarded by near-universal neglect in the jazz world. Before dying of leukemia in the indigent ward of New York's Creedmore Hospital in 1963, Nichols used to have visiting sessions with Neidlinger in the latter's apartment in the mid-'50s, playing Nicho!s' tunes and talking about music.

He'd call them rehearsals," says Neidlinger. "I don't know why, because no gigs ever happened. He liked classical music, and he knew a lot about it. I had a lot of Bartok and Stravinsky records, and he just ate that stuff up. He'd stay and listen to those records sometime 'til 10 or 11 in the morning, and then I'd kind of fall asleep, and he'd say, 'Well, I've gotta go home now.' And 1 found out years later he had no home. He'd go into the subway and ride it 'til it was time to come back to worl (playing standards in a hotel lounge).

Just before Nichols died, Neidlinger promised him that one day he'd record an album of Nichols' music with strings, the way Nichols often imagined them. Blue Chopsticks, on Neidlinger's own K2B2 Records, is the fulfillment of that promise, though the orchestral arrangements Nichols probably had in mind proved impractical. Instead, Neidlinger applied the same approach he used with his own StringJazz ensemble when the group interpreted the compositions of Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk on the Soul Note album Locomotive. He took the music of pianists and performed it in small ensembles.without pianists. And for Blue Chopsticks, he took it one step further.

Nichols recorded almost exclusively in trios of piano, drums and bass. "I 1eft out the piano, and I left out the drums, and I left out the bass , all for different reasons," says Neidlinger. "There was a guy in town who was telling all the contractors that I couldn't play jazz bass, so I thought.-he tilts his eyes skyward in an attitude of mock humility-"maybe he's right, so I played the cello on that album instead. And then I could never find anyone to play the piano in the way that Herbie played it. And then drums - I'm very down on drummers. I want a drummer to match up to certain qualities and I don't know any that do except for Vinnie Colaiuta, and he's not available, he works for Sting. If Philly Joe Jones was alive, I'd call him."

One night, Neidlinger had a dream that he, Krystall, brassman Hugh Schick, and violist Jimbo Ross and violinist Richard Greene were playing Nichols' tunes, and he decided to make it a reality, though only the dreamer was familiar with the material. Nevertheless, without arrangements, using only lead sheets and chord changes, with only three four -hour rehearsals and two six-hour record dates, the quintet whipped together a recording that's nearly shocking in its originality and musicianship.

Richard Greene is the greatest living blue grass violinist,. says Neidlinger. "He's the bluegrass boy, and has the belt buckle to prove it. He traveled with Bill Monroe and played in that band." So it should be no surprise that Blue Chopsticks strays rather far from the bebop milieu in which its compositions were created. Greene and Ross are old partners, so their teamwork is effortkssly telepathic. Greene shows off with a sharp accelerando violin solo to introduce the bumblebee chug "Cro-Magnon Nights.". And listen to the two's tight barn dance work on "The Gig,"

Neidlinger has been playing with Krystall for 25 years now. "When we started, he played totally free jazz," says Neidlinger. "But now he knows all about the chords, the working out of a melody! He has an angular way of playing that works with Monk." It works just as well with Nichols, whose bent phrasings and idiosyncratic chord juxtapositions have often been compared to Monk's - the pianists both came up in New York around the turn of the '40s. You can hear Krystall to good advantage on the slow-stepping, straw-hat-mp3ing blues of "2300 Skidoo," his breathy tenor solo bouncing through the chord changes like cones through the boughs of a pine. Or consider his chromatic improvisations within the dense, understated ensemble work of "Nick at T's," whose "Saber Dance" riff is set off by Neldlinger's tripped up walk on cello.

And Schick is never left behind: especially notable is his sensual trumpet spot on "The Lady Sings the Blues" (which Nichols wrote with Billie Holiday), whose soulful cello intro, withit's series of searing two-note chordings, also shows Neidlinger at his most commanding.

You miss the percussion at first, but soon reaize the problem is your preconceptions, not the music. The leadoff tune, "BIue Chopsticks," tells you all you need to know about Neidlinger's concept: forceful 16th-note bowings supply the beat, and counterpoint exchanges add rhythmic depth to a bunch of surprisingly catchy tunes.

Neidlinger's success in studio work means he's occasionally able to make make market-unconsious recordings like Blue Chopsticks and that he doesn't have to rely on playing jazz for a living. "A lot of people have made me feel like I should be guilty for not playing jazz full time," he says. Charlie Haden put me down because I didn't devote my entire existence to The Music, as he puts it. But sometimes you have to veer off and do something that people like, or else do something that you can earn a living doing. All music to me is, if I want to play it, I just do. That's why I play bluegrass, and old-time jazz, and whatever. Each music is it's own challenge-that's what I thrive on."

Judging from the mud he slings at fellow music professionals, Neidlinger also thrives on a certain amount of antagonism. He speaks softly, strokes his beard and eviscerates his victims with lurid tales of their narrow-mindedness, venality, artlessness and sexual peccadillos. (A certain famous symphony conductor: ("If you could bend over, you'd be his favorite.")

Oh - and an alert to critics: Neidlinger warns that he labels his promo CDs with a code for each addressee, and has spies to tell him when copies show up in "used" bins. He says one L.A. scribe turned Blue Chopsticks around in just two weeks.

There's an element of perversity to all this: playing the music of pianists without pianos, deliberately bucking the trends of the business, gleefully debunking the myths of jazz purity. Still, Neidlinger is a likeable guy, if you take your abrasiveness with a little milk and sugar. One myth of musicians is that they're individualists; here's one of the few who lives it, all the way.

July 5th, 1995

BUELL NEIDLINGER
Blue Chopsticks: A Portrait of Herbie Nichols
K2B2 3169

Eclectic bassist Buell Neidlinger pays homage to brilliant, lesser-known pianist and composer Herbie Nichols, who died in 1963 at age 44. The album features Nichols' best-known theme, "Lady Sings The Blues," which he wrote with Billie Holiday.

Neidlinger's quintet includes three string players (on violin, viola and cello), and redoubtable reedman Marty Krystall. Although the string arrangements may seem to bear classical or bluegrass inflences, Neidlinger is acutely aware of teh deep-rooted role of strings in jazz. Highlihgts of an enjoyably offbeat set include the sunny-yet-weird "Query" and the rapid-paced, bebop flurry "Cro-Magnon Nights."

THE DAY (serving eastern Connecticut since 1881)

June 25th, 1995 New London

BUELL NEIDLINGER
Blue Chopsticks: A Portrait of Herbie Nichols
Buell Neidlinger Quintet
K2B2 Records

    This album deserves to be the sleeper of the year, a delightfully light-hearted, but also deeply serious, tribute to Herbie Nichols, perhaps the most neglected jazz pianist of the modern era.
    Cellist Neidlinger performs these trio numbers form the '50s with reeds, brass, violin and viola accompanying. The result is the best kind of tribute, one that's terribly rare: songs that evoke the artist honored wityout merely repeating the work. 
    For all his skill as a pianist, Nichols' songwriting was his greatest strength, and it combined the wit of Monk, the soul of Horace Silver and the drive of Bud Powell. These songs are so rarely covered by other musicians that the chance to hear fresh versions of "2300 Skidoo," "Portrait of Ucha," and "Cro-Magnon Nights." The CD also revisits "Lady Sings the Blues," which Nichols wrote with Billie Holiday.
    Despite the import of the project, these musicians don't take themselves too seriously, and the result is an album both arty and a lot of fun. "Blue Chopsticks" is wel worth seeking out, and can be ordered from K2B2 Records.

BUELL NEIDLINGER
Blue Chopsticks
(K2B2)

     Herbie Nichols was one of the neglected geniuses of jazz. A brilliant pianist-composer who was too unique and ahead of his time, Nichols was only able to find regular work during his lifetime with dixieland bands; his own recordings of his compositions were exclusively in hornless trios. Shortly before Nichols' premature death in 1963, bassist Buell Neidlinger promised him that someday he would record the pianist's works with horns and strings. It took 31 years but the imaginative Blue Chopsticks proves to be worth the wait.
     Neidlinger (who switched to cello for the date) performs 11 of Herbie Nichols' compositions in an unusual quintet with trumpeter Hugh Schick, Marty Krystall on reeds (mostly tenor), violinist Richard Greene and the viola of Jimbo Ross; no piano, bass or drums! Because there have been few recordings of Nichols' pieces through the years (and almost none with horns), Neidlinger had to take creative liberties to really bring out the beaurty of the compositions in this setting.
     One hears strong hints of earlier forms of jazz (Schicks''s wa-wa trumpet is a major asset), classical music and country hoedowns along with the urgency of bop. The results are unpredictable, full of surprises and quite memorable. There are so many exquisite moments that it will take several listens to absorb all of this innovative music. Suffice it to say that Blue Chopsticks is one of the most significant jazz recordings to come out in 1995. This gem is highly recommended (and avialable from K2B2).

FEBRUARY 1996

BUELL NEIDLINGER
Blue Chopsticks: A Portrait of Herbie Nichols
K2B2 3169
Blue Chopsticks / 2300 Skiddoo / Portrait Of Ucha / The Gig / Love, Gloom, Cash, Love / Cro-Magnon Nights / Step Tempest / The Lady Sings The Blues / Query / Nick At T's / Applejackin'. 62:53
       Herbie Nichols is one of the definitive cult Jazz artists. A pianist/composer of inestimable abilities, he recorded only a fifth of his compositions. He labored, mostly in obscurity, playing with Dixieland combos to eke out a living. (It was the equivalent of Anton Webern conducting Carl Orff.) In his lifetime he made virtually no impact except on a small number of modern musicians with whom he recorded for Blue Note and Bethlehem, and then towards the end of his life (early '60s) there was a small coterie of up and coming musicians who clustered around him. Musicians like Roswell Rudd, Steve Lacy and Archie Shepp. Archie Shepp likened this period to a guru/apprenticeship program.. They came, heard, learned and spread the word. Europeans picked up the message. Misha Mengelberg and his I.C.P. Orchestra became a Herbie Nichols repertory aensemble for a while (7/89, p.87)
     Buell Neidlinger was a member ot that early '60s grouping but, to the best of my knowledge, he has never recorded any of Nichols' compositions. With Blue Chopsticks, Neidlinger pays it all back. Nichols had always had ambitions of working beyond the piano trio format (the only way he recorded). He had a desire to orchestrate his compositions for different formats and larger ensembles. Neidlinger has arranged eleven of his compositions for a reed player, brass player and string trio. Those familiar with Neidlinger's earlier recordings of Monk and Ellington compositions, Across the Tracks, may have a rough idea of what to expect from Blue Chopsticks. But this is a far better realized project, perhaps because it's a labor of love. (Perhaps, too, that's the reason it took Neidlinger so long to put it together.)
     But while this project is dedicated to one of Neidlinger's "mentors," it is Neidlinger's individual approach to the Nichols legacy. The most unusual feature is the lack of drums in the ensemble. Nichols viewed drums not only as a strong rhythmic force but also as a melodic element. He frequently ended compositions with a trail-off phrase from the drums. While that element is missing here, there is no problem with flaccid rhtyms. Everything here pushes along with rhythmic force and assurance courtesy of the string trio. Even a piece as drum-oriented as "Cro-Magnon Nights" moves froward with a stength and force that seems built into the compositions. It's rendered by Neidlinger and company with exceptional verve. Another facet of Nichols that's brought out in these arrangements is his wit. It's there in the jaunty exuberance of "Portrait Of Ucha." In their solos, violist Ross and Schick on his muted cornet sound like they're having a grand old time. So does Marty Krystall in his bass clarinet solo on "Query." "The Gig" is turned into a crazed hoedown that echoes one of Neidlinger's earlier groups, Buellgrass. "Love, Gloom, Cash, Love" is a boozy, bittersweet waltz in Nichols' interpretation Neidlinger stays true to the original's mood although this version may be a bit tipsier. It's all Nichols but equally important is that it is also all Neidlinger.
     It sounds like a lot of time and effort have gone into these arrangements and it's been worth it. Sure they're idiosyncratic. But they need to be if these compositons aren't going to become calcified museum pieces. Roswell Rudd once wrote hat anyone who plays a song of Nichols' makes this planet a better place. Neidlinger has done this and more.

- Robert Iannapollo

This album for me is a pivotal realisation of just what music can sound like when one simply goes for it - all stops out! It seems rather controversial to write up a 1991 jazz album from Los Angeles as being my pick of the crop as far as Desert Island recordings are concerned, but I cannot help but feel that this record is so far ahead with its prophecy that most of us will be old and grey before we really understand its profundity. This record speaks to my soul, and this is done with a lot of humour - thank God! There is obviously a lot of trust and love in the ensemble, despite the fact that it is reported to be only the second time the drummer had played with the band. I love the liner notes, too; a letter that Neidlinger wrote to his old pal Herbie Nichols. I've got Buell Neidlinger playing bass on Cecil Taylor's Looking Ahead from 1956, too. Forty years later, he's still looking ahead.

Dave Goodman

Marty Krystall is a deeply dedicated musician. He plays tenor saxophone with a searing intensity, coupled with a complex sonic awareness. His playing is some of the most advanced I've heard on tenor saxophone. As you listen and enjoy his creative efforts, you will also focus on the fact that he has absorbed the work of his predecessors to the maximum.

Krystall coaxes some extraordinary sounds from his horn, all the while dishing up his own personal sound rhetoric and pulling no punches. His use of the chromatic glissando in the changes is something you must hear. It's like a Ben Webster power trip with some Albert Taylor style slipping and sliding. Open ended harmony covers the evolution of this art form from Duke to Webern. Yet the end result is 100% Krystall. This cat is his own man, with a unique sense of phrasing.

The tunes on this CD are beautiful. They include several Buell Neidlinger tunes and some co-comps of Krystall and Buell. There is one Thelonious Monk tune, Brilliant Corners. In total the music has a modern and sophisticated foundation. I love Buell and Marty's rendition of Bnlliant Corners. This is a tricky tune with a seven bar bridge that's one of the most exciting and, at the same time, most unpredictable parts of this Monk gem. The way Buell fires up the band on this is like a room without walls. Buell's technical brilliance on bass is quickly obvious. I'd rather hear Buell play two quarter notes than most bassists play a chorus! The band really crashes and bashes, with dynamics and respect for the traditional acoustic requirements. Check the tune Buejerk to actually get a full ear of what I mean about the balance and color of this exceptional band.

The solos of trumpeter Demon Hugh Schick are startling. Schick plays with vigor and originality. Here is trumpet playing at its zenith. But you have to dig Marty Krystall for his vitality and energy. There is a lyrical quality, combined with a personal skill, that combines high energy with romanticism.

This CD is a total hotbed of experimentation with hints of traditional jazz sounds included for good measure. Marty Krystall's sax applies the yardstick of purity to this music.

Tim Price

Buell Neidlinger and Ed Schuller constitute something of a cross-generational continuum. Since the '50s, Neidlinger has busted through the gates of all the music ghettos, playing with everybody from Pee Wee Russell to Cecil Taylor and Frank Zappa. Even as a teenager, Ed Schuller was hip to polar opposites, as he leavened the influence of his father, Gunther Schuller, with large doses of Hendrix; the resulting wideangled perspective eventually landed him in the bands of, among others, Tim Berne, Paul Motian and Mal Waldron. Neidlinger and Schuller share an erudition that's laced with audacity, fine leadership qualities that give Big Drum and The Eleventh Hour their edge and energy.

Schuller has gotten over a major career hump with The Eleventh Hour. He goes beyond writing catchy heads, supplying plenty of smart comping and transition devices that keep longer cuts like "Keeping Still/Mountain" simmering. Schuller also penned an engaging multitracked bass feature, "For Dodo." As a player, he's always stretching; his racing underpinning of "Shamal" is more bristling than the solos of many marquee bassists. And, it all rubs off on his ensemble-saxophonist Greg Osby trombonist Gary Valente, guitarist Bili Bickford, drummer Victor Jones and percussionist Arto Tuncboyaci. If, like The Sporting News, JazzTimes had Power Ratings, Ed Schuller would be leapfrogging over a lot of bassist/composer/leaders in the next listing on the strength of The Eleventh Hour.

Neidlinger's Big Drum is big fun. Though this is a program where 14 bar blues, sacred Papago melodies and chromatic contrapuntal bridges are baseline fare, it by no means has the feel of a post graduate seminar in obscurantism. Neidlinger, tenorist Marty Krystall, trumpeter Hugh Schick and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, have refined an elastic, rapidfire rapport. There's humor and honest hot improvisation in this live set. In turn, the quartet gives the material a Mingus like grittiness, a Nichols derived songfulness, or unmitigated Buellness (read: slightly madcap zeal). Their reading of "Brilliant Corners" is a pungent reminder of just how modern Monk can still sound. More than 35 years since his first sides with Cecil Taylor, Buell Neidlinger is still creating challenging, exciting music.

It I Ever Lose My Faith In You; Love Is Stronger Than Justice (line Munificent Seven); Fields Of Gold; Heavy Cloud No Rain; She's Too Good For Me; Seven Days; Saint Augustine In Hell; It's Probably Me; Shape Of My Heart; Something The Boy Said; Epilogue (Nothing 'Bout Me)

Those who have followed Vinnie Colaiuta's career through Zappa, Gino Vanelli, the Los Lobotomys album, Tom Scott, and Chick Corea already appreciate his versatility. These two recent releases exemplify the extreme ends of the musical spectrum but still highlight a style that is unmistakably Vinnie's.

Except for the somewhat pat "If I Ever Lose My Faith In You," Ten Summoner's (as in Gordon Sumner's) Tales' Iyrics reveal a lighter, sardonic side of Sting. Vinnie complements Sting's humor and infectious, twisting melodies with sly rhythmic turnings such as the halfnote cymbal bell ride that "reverses" in every other halftime 7/4 bar of "Saint Augustine In Hell," but plays it straight and simple for the sincere oath in "Fields Of Gold," driving in the powerSouthern shuffle of "She's Too Good For Me," and with suppressed urgency in the silky, soaring 5/4 of "Seven Days."

Contrasting the unified designs of Summoner's Tales, live recorded Big Drum's foray into avant garde jazz spotlights the musicians' existential agendas, which seem to intersect and diverge by happenstance. Vinnie's technique explodes on every tune, as on the stuttering, lightening fast Latin "El A," in the relatively structured arrangement of Monk's "Brilliant Corners," and in his rare brush work on "Tienanmen Bop" and "Ming's Visit." Alternately anchoring the chaos and detonating the calm, he balances the soloists' intensity-and frequently their time-always propelling the work forward.

Those who have mistaken Vinnie's masterful grasp of context with studio chameleonism can hear in these supremely diverse settings his deadcenter, clean single sticking and intricate, creative subdivisions-and a crystal clear musical identity that not merely supports each performance, but makes it bigger than the sum of its parts.

BUELLGRASS BIG DAY AT 0JAl K2B2 RECORDS 2369.

Stardust/ Jumpin 'Punkins/ Happy-Go-LuckY Local/ Biille's Bounce/ Caravan/ Epistrophy Mood Indigo/ Tennessee Waltz. 34:44. Buell Neldllinger, ac b, Petcr Ivers, hmca Andy Statman, mand, cl; Richard Greene vio; Marty Krystall, ss, ts, cl, bs. cl; Peter Erskine, dms 8/23/81.

Just a few short months ago (2/84, p. 30) I wrote about an excellent album that fused such diverse elements as Jazz (in the musical persona of Ellington and Monk), Blues and bluegrass. Big Day At Ojai is a stunning reminder that great creative music cannot be pigeonholed. From the opening of "Stardust," with its stately mandolin and bass duet, to the closing seconds of "Tennessee Waltz," this album never lets down, You may be stunned by the superbly swinging mandolin of Andy Statman and pleased by the singing Iyrical quality of Richard Greene's violin. Then, there is the alternately gruff and sensual saxophones of Marty Krystall, who also adds some piquant clarinet work. The harp work of the late Peter Ivers harkens back to the sound of Little Walter and it contains a swing and vitality that links it to the power of the classic big band horn section. Finally, you may just decide to sit back and listen to how the rhythm section quietly underpins the entire proceedings. Erskine uses brushes throughout the entire album-he tiptoes through the ballads and he sashays through the uptempo pieces never intruding yet always there. Neidlinger is like the musical Rock-Of-Gibraltar, steady and true.

It might spoil your fun if I listed all the highpoints of this album, so here's but a few. "Caravan" is executed at breakneck speed, in the style of "Orange Blossom Special." Peter Ivers contributes an excellent solo, one of many he performs on the LP. Then, there's the crazy klezmer clarinet solo dropped into the middle of "Mood Indigo." There are many surprises on this record that will keep the listener on his toes (happily). Big Day Ar Ojai is an excellent album, well worthy of your attention.

Richard B. Kamins

Buellgrass - Across theTracks

Richard B. Kamins