The Arkansas free jazz outpost Mahakala Music says that part of its mission lies in bringing together artists from disparate locales. To that end its latest release Murmuration is billed as a commingling where ‘birds from the east coast meet birds from the midwest’.
It features the saxophonist Dave Sewelson, who settled in the East Village of Manhattan at the height of the downtown scene in the late seventies, then accompanied Wayne Horvitz and Saheb Sarbib and became a mainstay of William Parker’s orchestra before starring last year with the guitarist Ava Mendoza on the tipsy and bluesy, artsy yet emotionally trenchant Of It But Not Is It; the violinist and inveterate collaborator Gabby Fluke-Mogul, a Brooklynite who has duetted with Joanna Mattrey and Nava Dunkelman; the Minnesota-based saxophonist and guitarist George Cartwright, who describing himself writes that he ‘grew up on rock and roll and fell in love with jazz after hearing Charles Lloyd’s iconic Forest Flower. He loves The Fugs and Eric Dolphy equally’ while every couple of months he manages to put out a new batch of spirited tributes and timbral exercises, the latest of which Mostly Black for Fahey is also out this week; the Minneapolis-born bassist Anthony Cox, a Jack Walrath and Geri Allen regular who has also engaged in fruitful partnerships with John Scofield, Joe Lovano, Bobby Previte and Andrew Cyrille; and last but not least Steve Hirsh another leading improviser who has lived and performed for many years in and around the Twin Cities, who provides a connecting thread given his enduring links to his hometown of New York City, while now serving as a Mahakala Music linchpin behind the drum kit.
Across the nine tracks of Murmuration it is often Fluke-Mogul’s bowed violin which takes the lead, suggesting a melodic line and encouraging a bit of forward momentum amid the sputtering and growling of the two horns, the tuning of the cello or bass and some noodling percussion. The deftness and inherent flightiness of that violin, whether it is flapping through the upper registers, maintaining a steady line in the manner of a drone or swooping with the devil-may-care of a dive bomber is matched by the duck calls of the saxophones and especially Sewelson’s baritone, which sometimes mimics a trumpet.
Duos pair off to compelling effect, whether it’s Cox and Hirsh who present the staggered opening to ‘Blackout’, Sewelson and Cartwright who open ‘Out Of Here’ with a beckoning din before Fluke-Mogul swaps in for the alto saxophone and engages in something more fraught until she plays a sudden snatch of ‘Happy Birthday’, one of several interpolated themes, or the baritone of Sewelson and the bass of Cox on the bluesy introduction to ‘Dream State’ before Cartwright, who also plays the guitar on Murmuration, begins slicing through the composition on his alto, building steadily towards a rowdy apogee.
Fitful and splotchy percussion might very occasionally stumble upon a martial rhythm while Cox alternates between the bass and cello rarely restricted to the role of accompaniment, but instead playing with a kind of pointillist classicism, like a Swan Lake on duck legs or a pair of stilts wading through the Louisiana swamp, as this Murmuration especially on the title track and the swaggering closer ‘Peripheral Wonder’ takes up folksy fiddle-like airs and barnstorming climaxes.
