Airports for Light
| Airports for Light | ||||
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| Studio album by Ken Vandermark & The Vandermark 5 | ||||
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Publication |
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| Label (s) | Atavistic Records | |||
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Format (s) |
CD |
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Title (number) |
9 |
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running time |
1:09:28 |
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Studio (s) |
Semaphore Studios, Chicago |
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Airports for Light is a jazz album by Ken Vandermark & The Vandermark 5. The recordings made on August 22nd and 23rd, 2002 at Semaphore Studios, Chicago, were released on March 18th, 2003 on Atavistic Records . Airports for Light is the sixth album by Vandermark 5 ; the music ranges from free improvisation in European style to rock and funk influences. A limited edition of the album was released with the bonus CD Six for Rollins .
background
Ken Vandermark became known in the late 1980s as a young tenor saxophonist in the NRG Ensemble of Chicago avant-garde icon Hal Russell . Together with Mars Williams , Vandermark created a nervous, almost punky spirit in the band's music, wrote Dominique Leone, and founded The Vandermark Five with Williams after Russell's death in 1992 . Trombonist Jeb Bishop and bassist Kent Kessler have appeared on all of the group's records since the 1997 debut Single Piece Flow ; Dave Rempis joined Williams in March 1998, drummer Tim Daisy had only been a member of the group since 2001. The quintet's music, like Hal Russell's, "has generally retained a space that cannot simply be classified as straight ahead jazz , nor is it strictly avant-garde, free jazz or jazz-rock, " says Leone; "Vandermark could most easily be compared with his New York colleague John Zorn or, more precisely, with Ellery Eskelin ".
With the Vandermark Five publications, the dedications are always explicitly mentioned in the song titles, for example in Airports for Lights opening title “Cruz Campo (For Gerhard Richter )”, wrote Christopher Porter. Vandermark said:
- "The structural aspects of the melody: the first theme could loosely be thought of as new music or 'classical' theme, and then it goes into this kind of free jazz-blowing thing, then it cuts into a 'European style' improvisation space and then it turns into that harmoniously switching blowout. There are all these different kinds of areas that it shifts through, and one of the things about Richter's painting is that he's doing all of these different styles at the same time - he has these hyper-real, almost photographic accurate images, and then the abstract stuff, and then this black and white paintings that have many political connections. I explored this kind of simultaneous diversity in my music and felt very strongly connected in this way. "
The second title, "Staircase", is dedicated to the film director John Cassavetes . Vandermark said: “This piece is about the mood from the film Faces [1968]. At the end there is a scene that happens in a stairwell with a husband and wife whose marriage has completely fallen apart. The choreography of the scene is really powerful. ”In fact, Vandermark wrote the music based on a description he read about the film; he finally saw the film shortly before the tour on which the album was presented.
The musician said of the swinging "Both Sides (For Budd Johnson)":
- “ Budd Johnson is a really interesting character in history that I didn't know about until a few years ago. I heard Ben Webster and Associates [Verve 1959], an absolutely phenomenal album that featured Webster with Coleman Hawkins and that Budd Johnson who really blew me away. His whole approach to the tenor was really interesting and he was completely on par with them. My father gave me more information about him and it turned out to be central to much of Bebop's development in collaboration with Gillespie. And a lot of the style, in terms of the format of the little combos and the arrangements in terms of the intervals the groups would play and the heads and all that stuff, much of that work was developed with Budd Johnson. To me he's that underrated character in [jazz] history who has done a lot and played with thousands of different people. "
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One of the other dedications on the album is “Initials (For Jean Tinguely)”. “Initials” is like one of those metal sculptures invented by Jean Tinguely . “Unlike a lot of the other material on the record and what I usually do, there is conventional notation and possibly some instructions on how to approach certain areas. [..] It is based on how two different people in the group can trigger an action, and those actions may or may not set off a series of events. It is very unpredictable how the piece will play out by itself. Because the way someone individually decides to react to a cue may or may not create a series - almost like a virus. "
Track list
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reception
In the opinion of the All About Jazz critic , Airports for Light is "an unqualified success as a conceptual project." It takes several listening sessions to fully understand the relationships between the melodies and the dedicatee, overall a fun game that reveals layers of meaning in the music . The recording may not be the most consistent the Vandermark 5 has ever made.
Dominique Leone wrote in Pitchfork that the record was a good start “for people who normally don't sit on the jazz bus” and that Vandermark's records - with and without a band - are most likely to be understood by outsiders. “His own playing can be heavy or loud, and his band is always top notch, but the melodies are hardly off-putting. In a way, the Vandermark Five are a perfect bridge for rock fans who believe that jazz is the music of a "secret society".
Brian Olewnick gave the album three stars and extreme reservations in Allmusic : “The sixth album by Ken Vandermark's quintet will undoubtedly satisfy its steadfast fans. It was a very solid performance, but the problem was that Vandermark largely limited himself to one of three approaches: the stormy attack, the dark ballad or the spiky, half-free improviser. Vandermark's playing is rarely very imaginative and his basic sound stays on the dreary side, especially in contrast to Dave Rempis' explosive alto saxophone, which regularly floods his fellow players with both imaginative and sheer sonic power. Together with Rempis the bassist Kent Kessler shows his usual great playing and is really one of the underrated great bassists in jazz, and the trombonist Jeb Bishop acts with fine wit and fluidity. The new drummer Tim Daisy is a bit more problematic, his clattering sound occasionally disturbs the cohesion of the group. "
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Dominique Leone: The Vandermark Five: Airports for Light. Pitchfork, June 4, 2003, accessed June 17, 2020 .
- ↑ a b c d e Christopher Porter: Ken Vandermark: Focuus Airports for Light. JazzTimes, June 1, 2003, accessed June 17, 2020 .
- ↑ The Vandermark 5: Airports For Light at Discogs
- ^ The Vandermark Five: Airports for Light. All About Jazz, May 6, 2019, accessed June 7, 2020 .
- ↑ Review of Brian Olewnick's album at Allmusic (English). Retrieved April 1, 2020.