Matt Bauder - Weary Already of the Way (482 Music, 2004)

More Chicago improv/Matt Bauder/2003 with a host of other great players such as Fred Lonberg-Holm, Jason Roebke, and Rob Mazurek. This is release number four in 482 Music's excellent Document Chicago series. Although originally improvised, most of the musicians were recorded separately and it was patched together and manipulated later by Bauder, so it may be stretching some definitions of jazz/improvisation. But its a damn good album anyway and the fact that it was pieced together later is actually pretty amazing as it has a very cohesive sound.

From Matt Bauder:

In 2000 I composed the four pieces for sextet (two reeds, two strings, two brass) that more or less appear on the disc. While I was composing I was aware that I was asking the players to play as if their sounds were being electronically manipulated. While writing the music I was thinking of a recording where the before imagined electronic processes would be actually constructed electronically. The music on the disc was recorded in segments with solos and small ensembles and later edited and layered to construct my compositions. Very little was actually played live with everyone together... One of my main interests was non-interaction within a specific texture. We did this in a few different ways. One was to give instructions to each player and record them separately while not listening to what the others had recorded, and then layering. The beginning is probably the most electronic sounding part. It was made by recording all of the players separately playing long tones, and then I spent quite a long time cutting them into those blips by hand (by cursor I guess) on the computer. One distinction I should make is that there are no electronic sound sources (there is a Hammond organ bass line at the end, but I didn't want to make a big deal out of it by saying that I play organ on the record), and very little signal processing (some distortion on the cello, and plate reverb).

All 4 tracks are great. The first track is the most heavily manipulated electronically to very good results. Some of the other tracks offer sputtering squiggly splurty strings and brass, but also some very beautiful long tones, particularly track 4 which actually builds into some dramatic beautiful "fan-fare" type deal.

Label: 482 Music Catalog#: 482-1025 Country: US Released: 2003 Genre: Experimental Jazz/Free Improvisation Credits: Aram Shelton - alto saxophone, clarinet Fred Lonberg-Holm - cello Jason Roebke- bass Jeb Bishop - trombone Matt Bauder - tenor saxophone, clarinet Rob Mazurek - cornet Todd Margasak - cornet

Tracklisting:

1. 1 (20:06) 2. 2 (8:00) 3. 3 (8:23) 4. 4 (16:08)

get it