:: STUDIO 282 :: international artists' group ::

Convergence Quartet
Live in Oxford
Reviews

#9 in the Best Records of 2007: John Sharpe, All About Jazz

• Downtown Music Gallery
  
  Simon H. Fell says in the liner notes that he has no idea how this quartet got together and just wrote the notes based on his hearing the disc only. I recall Taylor telling me that the two young British gents here, got some sort of grant funds and asked Taylor and Harris to join them in the UK to work together. Anyone in the know, is well aware of the young master, Taylor Ho Bynum, from his recent collaborations with Anthony Braxton, as well as a handful of his own discs. Since moving back from L.A., where he worked with Adam Rudolph, Sam Rivers & Vinny Golia, Harris Eisenstadt has become another of those fine local percussionists who has turned up in many different projects over the past few years and has a half dozen fine discs of his own. I can't say that I had heard of the other two players before this, but I am greatly impressed. Each musician contributes a piece, while Taylor gets one long and one short one. Taylor's "Miscellaneous" opens with a fine drum solo, soon the bass, cornet and piano enter. The rhythm is like twisted funk with Taylor adding odd smears against the groove. The next section features cornet fragments, bowed bass scrapes, restrained free percussion and piano eruptions. It ends with a similar closing theme to the beginning. Dominic's "Goad" has Taylor bending his notes slowly in the distance and then the rest of the quartet enters in swirling waves. A series of intricate duos and trios take place, as the musicians exchange roles and ideas. Harris' "Convergence" opens with a haunting bass solo, a great theme unfolds with an unforgettable melody played by the flugel and piano over a grand throbbing bass line and hypnotic percussion groove. The theme reminds me of one of those wonderful South African songs and Alexander takes an appropriate Keith Tippett-like rambunctious, free piano solo. Alexander's "Goodbye, Sir" is next and begins freely and sparsely with Taylor's free-wheeling cornet insanity while Alex plays soft eerie sounds inside the piano. The piece gets more and more spare, until midway point when it slowly erupts with some restrained yet intense free piano and percussion. Taylor's "mm(pf)" brings things to a close with sparse and haunting sounds that float freely yet seem playfully connected and concludes with a nice melodic themed ending. This is a most interesting disc that evolves through a variety of unexpected directions and will take some time to absorb completely. - BLG

  
  
  

• ejazz news
  
  Recorded at a music building in Oxford, England, this international cast of highly-regarded improvisers use the building's wonderful acoustics as a vantage point here. Therefore, it's an organic program that resonates with the musicians' multifaceted mode of attack. More importantly the program is a study in contrasts. Whether it's Alexander Hawkins' pumping or gingerly executed voicings atop asymmetrical pulses or the band's minimalist like dialogues, this album truly is a convergence of musical ideas. Featuring five semi-structured pieces that enable the instrumentalists quite a bit of room for expression and expansion, there are parts where Hawkins phrasings seemingly roll off Harris Eisenstadt's polyrhythmic pulses. Trumpeter Taylor Ho Bynum frequently revs it up while also working within budding themes, firmed-up by bassist Dominic Lash. Another component of the artists’ musical architecture pertains to their integration of tangible themes into the improvisational element. And at times, the dialogues elicit thoughts of people scurrying around a room, where the band engages in cat and mouse exchanges. On "Goodbye, Sir," they purvey a sense of loneliness and isolation but eventually up the ante with heated, interweaving dialogues. Overall, this is a convincingly solid engagement that highlights the band's morphing of ambience, finesse, power and intricately devised subtleties. It's all executed with a sense of purposeful exploration. An excellent outing, indeed. . . - Glenn Astarita

  
  
  

• Point of Departure
  
  The Convergence Quartet consists of two North Americans (cornet and flugelhornist Taylor Ho Bynum and drummer Harris Eisenstadt) and two Brits (Alexander Hawkins on piano and small instruments and bassist Dominic Lash). The musicians seem to be taking the band name seriously, as the music is clearly informed by the intersections of methodologies; even though the pieces are shaped by free improvisation, each of the five tracks credits a single composer.
  The first piece, Bynum's "Miscellaneous", nicely recapitulates the textural history of jazz, whether it wants to or not, beginning with the cornetist's fine averaging of Bubber Miley and Tricky Sam Nanton with the big beat, Sonny Greer-style orchestral drumming of Eisenstadt. Before the theme is recapitulated, Hawkins' solo has some of the animation of Cecil Taylor: it's a short and circular history. Lash's "Goad" is then the sonic inverse, initially a collection of wisps and stutters that maintains that level until a piano solo creates strong linear continuity and animation, triggering a rhythmic figure from the cornet that might be a composed bridge to another passage of improvisation, dynamic sostenuto piano scurry leading to a final angular trumpet part consisting of sturdy and pointed blasts. A bass solo introduces Eisenstadt's "Convergence", gradually gaining in rhythmic specificity to introduce something that Henry Mancini would recognize as a theme, with bass and drums working in close tandem. While Hawkins gradually takes it out with Tippett-ing flurries, segments might be described as "in the pocket", by those who actually use that phrase. There's a wonderful moment here in which Bynum plays call and response with himself at the same time that he's interacting closely with Eisenstadt. Hawkins' "Goodbye, Sir" is more obscure in its underpinnings, beginning with sound-play solos from Bynum and Eisenstadt before thematic materials emerge with a group passage that leads to free (jazz) improvisation that's a highlight of the performance. The final and brief Bynum piece, "mm(pf)", reasserts a pattern here, strong tonal agreement arising out of apparently random activity.
  What this music means in relationship to how it's assembled will be determined in each individual listening, but its ambiguities of construction form a particular invitation to inquire into the time and manner of its making. One of its characteristic gestures is a movement from improvisation to pre-structured material, thus structuring material in advance of our hearing, changing our temporal relationship to its construction while suggesting a fundamental reassertion of composition within improvised music. It also thematizes the idea of free improvisation as a prelude to something else that has already conditioned it, turning improvisation into something the music is about rather than a method of making it. The liner essay by Simon H. Fell is a useful inquiry into the issues posed by this music. For anyone interested in pursuing this work, Fell's note is also available as a PDF file on the record company site: www.fmr-records.com. - Stuart Broomer

  
  
  

• The Vortex
  
  This band should be familiar to Vortex patrons, having played at the club in November 2006, during the tour that produced this album, recorded live in Oxford. Their music straddles the border between structure and freedom, moving uncontrivedly from prearranged but relatively sketchy 'heads' (often a mere hint of a melody or a repeated motif) to freely improvised passages skilfully utilising the entire range of sounds and textures, from quiet skittering to full-throttle free-for-alls, available to a band comprising cornet/flugelhorn (Baltimore-born Taylor Ho Bynum, an ex-Braxton student who has played with the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra among others), piano (Alex Hawkins), bass (Dominic Lash) and drums (Harris Eisenstadt, from Toronto).
  The telling exploitation of contrast (both stylistic and dynamic) is perhaps the band's greatest collective strength (on this album, 'Convergence' ­ to take a representative piece ­ includes both an insinuating, quietly stated theme and roiling free passages), but individually, too ­ Taylor Ho Bynum incorporating everything from woozy smears to spearing runs into his playing, Alex Hawkins gunning the gamut from splashily percussive to pianissimo, Dominic Lash judiciously balancing steady support with solo excursions, Harris Eisenstadt driving the whole via everything from powerhouse rock-like beats to the subtlest of understatement ­ the band rivet the attention just as successfully on this recording as they did at their Vortex gig.

  
  

• Touching Extremes
  
  Taylor Ho Bynum (cornet, flugelhorn), Harris Eisenstadt (drums), Alexander Hawkins (piano, small instruments) and Dominic Lash (double bass) are the members of The Convergence Quartet, a not-too-friendly unit whose means of expression is a mixture of linearity and complexity applied in equal doses over the course of five tracks, each one curiously penned by a lone component but not revelatory of its composer's primary instrument's influence. The large part of the album sounds like pure improvisation, though, with just a modicum of pretty minimal themes to which the players return after the most difficult unpremeditated sections. A Mark Isham-like trumpet draws horizontal lines of calmness amidst Cecil Taylor-ish spurts in "Convergence", only to start babbling and clamouring while riding a muscular vamp by Lash, while Eisenstadt, the author of this particular piece, accompanies and underlines with masterful sensitiveness, at times coming to the front in the mix with rare outbursts. Hawkins' "Goodbye, Sir" is very variegated, fractured in a way, lots of quasi-silences interrupted either by complex interplay or introvert explorations by a single instrument; think "XX-Century dissonant marching band, power switched alternatively on and off", with additional pinches of solo follies to render the music even more unbalanced. The live recording captures the group as a resonating, often booming whole, the instruments exploiting the natural reverberation of Oxford's Jacqueline Du Pré Music Building to represent a collective picture where details are to be intuited and guessed rather than individuated. The dynamic contrasts always remain within the borders of acceptability also for less expert ears, transforming the experience in an exercise in attentive listening that needs concentration to give out its secrets. - Massimo Ricci

  
  

• Oxford Times
  
  Recorded live at the Jacqueline du Pré Music Room last year at the end of a national tour by the Convergence Quartet, this album is a perfect example of the richly varied nature of free improvisation. Featuring two players of international standing, American trumpeter Taylor Ho Bynum and Canadian drummer Harris Eisenstadt, plus the fast-rising talents of two young local players, Alexander Hawkins on piano and Dominic Lash on bass, this concert contains the variety of skills and approaches that makes jazz taken into the unchartered country of musical freedom so exciting and unpredictable. Taylor Ho Bynum, who here plays cornet and flugelhorn, is a musician and composer who works tirelessly as performer and educator. He is very articulate about his music. "People have to realise that they are so busy fetishising the jazz of the past and the historical periods of the past to realise that we are at an incredibly, radical, transitional period . . . I think it is imperative that artists deal with that." The fossilisation of our responses to music including jazz constantly stultifies our response to new ideas, so this album which has the immediacy of a live event is a welcome addition to the growing discography from musicians who wish to respond artistically to the more radical nature of the cultural landscape. With the shifting tonal quality of Ho Bynum's spare lines arching over the rush and tremble of Eisenstadt's drumming, while Lash boosts and counters on bass and Hawkins introduces floods of highly articulated notes, the music on this album (FMR CD223-0307) is constantly curving and developing in a way that earlier free jazz often failed to do. From moments of almost silence, with Lash teasing the edges of his bass or Bynum lifting single notes into the wonderful acoustic of the JDP, through to full-on duos between Hawkins and Eisenstadt, this is an album full of lightning responses from all the players and moments of magical innovation. Though inevitably best experienced in the moment, this recording perfectly captures the freshness of the event. - Paul Medley

  
  

• EarRelevant AlmaTeur
  
  As the quartet's name suggests, Bynum, drummer Harris Eisenstadt, pianist Alexander Hawkins, and bassist Dominic Lash together present as a meeting of strong individual voices more than of a high-definition group identity. Each of the five track is bylined by one of the four, with Bynum's signature bookending the others. Everyone's conceptual vision is represented, all have plenty of performance space to make within each vision their statements. One's ear must be attuned to the relationship between compositional gesture and wide-open improvisation to assess the success of the blend. Bynum's such touch is light; he orchestrates and composes sketchily yet thoughtfully enough to stimulate without forcing the improv, or leaving it high (or low) and dry. His opening "miscellaneous" opens the door onto some of his most artful and reaching playing - well recorded for a live performance - which in turn draws out the same quality in the others. Matching it, his ending "mm(pf)" frames the CD with that quality like a couple of very fine artist-calligrapher's etchings, gallery hung. Lash's "goad" is less apparent as a made piece, but arguably more brilliant as an extensive, restrained burn of a performance, stoked well by all. Eisenstadt's "convergence" is the most dramatic and ambitious compositional statement, but one on which the elaborations may not have fully realized its potential (at least on CD; a closer mic on Bynum here might have blunted that complaint). Hawkins' "goodbye, sir" brought "small instruments" to the palette, combining with his pianisms to paint the biggest range of refined subtlety and splashy panache, infecting the others therewith. - Mike Heffley

  
  

• The Wire
  
  A hot one - composer, cornet/flugelhorn player and former Anthony Braxton student Taylor Ho Bynum is part of the line-up of this exceptional quartet. His opening "Miscellaneous" pulls you in with a hair raising, strangulated wheeze from his instrument that sounds as if he is screaming "WOWWWW!!!" through the mouthpiece, bringing to mind the early work of the great Bill Dixon. Meanwhile the rest of The Convergence Quartet put their collective shoulders to the free compositional wheel and give it a massive shove over the edge. Piano player Alexander Hawkins weaves a lush tapestry of disembodied notes over drummer Harris Eisenstadt and bass player Dominic Lash's rhythmic surge, while Bynum's cornet operatically barks in the background. Beautifully timed and perfectly paced, the pristine recording captures their ability to balance memorable thematic modern jazz interludes with all-out free jazz squall. Wow! - Edwin Pouncey

  
  
  

• All About Jazz
  
  Double review by John Eyles of Live in Oxford and the Barkingside album here.

  
  
  

• Eartrip
  
  Even in "progressive" music circles, it can still seem that a kind of skewed nationalistic thinking predominates: Brotzmann's aggressive image and sound is somehow the embodiment of part of the German national psyche, Derek Bailey's playing embodies the attitude of the of down-to-earth, unfussy Sheffield man (so often descriptions of him seem to be as much about the way he conducted himself on stage as about what he played), etc. But, as projects like this indicate, there's often a lot more common ground between musicians of different nationalities than there may between people of the same nationality. What's more, this is a group of young musicians, living in an age when contact with those from different national jazz scenes is a lot easier. The internet has a lot to with this, in all probability, and, indeed, the quartet are billed as the first fully-blogging jazz group. Blogs or not, the thing that really matters is that they're all fine individual musicians, but have combined to create a group that's noticeably co-operative in intent: each one contributes a composition (Bynum offers two, which bookend the disc), and no one seems particularly concerned with grabbing a leadership role. One could say that the group itself is the leader and where the collective music happens to be heading at any particular time is where things lead. In other words, there's something nicely loose and relaxed about strict structure, though it's never directionless (and, one suspects, is often under strict supervision from at least one player). Pianist Alexander Hawkins shares such an ethos: can be expansive in his approach he clearly has the technique to be as florid as he likes but he is also tightly controlled and keenly aware of what's going on around him, so that he's as likely to be providing textural detail, by plucking the strings inside the piano or using "small" instruments (undoubtedly an AACM influence, although sparingly employed), as he is to roam the length and breadth of the keyboard. Meanwhile, Taylor Ho Bynum's experiences with Mr Braxton have obviously taught him a great deal, but here, he moves beyond those limits to a more overtly jazzy approach than that required by the Ghost Trance Musics. Mind you, that doesn't mean he dusts off his Clifford Brown hard-bop licks - it often seems that he's deliberately avoiding a "clean" tone for lots of brarps and growls which hark back instead to early "primitives"/pioneers. Such expressive effects, and a wicked sense of timing, impart his playing with a cheeky sense of humour, too. So, as miscellaneous opens, he rumbles away over what sound like slightly slowed down jazz piano lines and the clattery clangingness of Eisenstadt's drums - the whole thing feels deliciously woozy, though the melody reveals itself to have an obsessional quality that is shot through with dark beauty. That melody doesn't come in for several minutes, though, and that's one thing I particularly like about the disc: there's plenty going on, but there's always plenty of space for it to happen. Rather than rushing through the "head" to get onto the solos, the quartet test the waters first, establishing a mood and atmosphere out of disparate fragments which gradual converge - once some sort of collusion is reached, the texture and musical direction may then be subtly altered, abruptly departed from, or indeed, continued, by the written parts. Of course, the idea of "convergence" seems to be an important one, given the name of the group - I won't go into at great length here, but I will note that the titles on this disc just beg to be picked up on as a way of describing the music. "Goad", the second track, opens with low register piano and breathy trumpet squals; Eisenstadt seems to be the one functioning as the "goader", prodding Bynum to blow a few brash phrases as the piano builds up rolling low-tones, then suddenly departs for more skittering insectjazz. Meanwhile, it's tempting to see Hawkins' "Goodbye Sir" as a half-respectful, halfdisrespectful nod to jazz tradition: respect for the things that makes the music fresh, disrespect for all sterility and cliché. If "Live in Oxford" is anything to go by, the group's 2009 UK tour is looking as if it could be one of the musical highlights of next year. - David Grundy

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