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New releases from Carol Liebowitz/Bill Payne and from Big Heart Machine offer inventive and innovative music in your choice of sizes: duo or 18-piece big band.

Carol Liebowitz/Bill Payne
Spiderwebmandala (Line Art Records)
A review
In May 2016, a cohort of musicians who share a connection with the late pianists Connie Crothers and Lennie Tristano took over the Outpost Performance Space in Albuquerque for two nights of intuitive improvisation. Among those remarkable musicians were pianist Carol Liebowitz and clarinetist Bill Payne, who together created music that was never heard before and would never be played again. Without sheet music or knowing what they were going to play before they played it, these two virtuosi created a set of unpredictable but coherent and affecting music that followed a logic based on the feeling of the moment. About 150 lucky individuals, including me, were in the audience that night for this daring excursion, and now the rest of the world can share it on the live recording, Spiderwebmandala.* The nine tracks on the album draw from a variety of genres—classical, jazz, circus music, what-have-you—and covers ground that ranges from the impressionistic to the sharp edged, the mysterious to the celebratory, the lyrical to the concrete. Two of the tracks include spoken word contributions from poet Mark Weber—the album takes its name from one of his poems—who also produced the concert, along with Janet Simon and the Outpost’s executive director, Tom Guralnick.

Mark Weber. Photo by Carol Liebowitz.

On the opener, “Deep Sky,” Payne’s clarinet zips around with the startling speed, sudden redirections, and magical accuracy of a hummingbird, his microtonal exactitude opening the subtlest shades of feeling. Liebowitz splashes lush and suddenly shifting swathes of color in tunefully dissonant arpeggios, like schools of tiny fish swirling in three-dimensional kaleidoscopic displays. Speaking of kaleidoscopes, “Spiderweb Mandala Flower Explosion Poem: Drishti,” inspired by the phantasmagoric Weber poem of the same name, opens with a wonderfully agitated section: water droplets on a hot skillet. The cat-and-mouse of “Secrets” probes at something hidden but offers the possibility of revelation. “Desert Dance” feels like the musical equivalent of myth: as reassuring as it is disquieting. On “Notes on a Dream,” the duo’s magical simultaneity and confluences reach a dazzling pinnacle. Payne goes pathfinding in an Ellingtonian wood in his solo, while on hers, Liebowitz explores deep harmonies that betray her classical training. On “Vanishing Point,” the two engage in an aerial dance free of gravity. The music on Spiderwebmandala is not easy. It requires listeners to relax both their ears and their expectations and give themselves up to the flow. You won’t be humming this music at the end, but it may set you to humming.

Go here for a closer look at these two musicians and their musical process.

Big Heart Machine
Big Heart Machine (Outside In Music)
A review
The brainchild of leader, composer, and multireed specialist Brian Krock, the 18-piece Big Heart Machine orchestra delivers wave after wave of intense, complex, and heart-thumping music on its eponymously titled premiere release (available August 24; now available for preorder*). Under the baton of Miho Hazama and produced by Darcy James Argue, two meteoric and award-winning stars dedicated to reimagining the possibilities of the big band, the orchestra explores a startlingly inventive collection of textures and stylistic elements. The compositions draw on heavy metal and progressive rock—genres in which the young guitar-shredding Krock immersed himself and which are ably supported on the album by Finnish guitarist Olli Hirvonen—contemporary classical music, and the inner and outer edges of jazz. The album’s opener, “Don’t Analyze,” takes its title from a dictum by John Cage: “Don’t try to create and analyze at the same time. They’re different processes.” Krock responded to this advice, he says, by writing this big band composition improvisationally, without editing his choices. The episodic, seat-of-the-pants quality in the writing is balanced by an inspired ability to connect disparate pieces into a unified whole. It’s a characteristic that threads through the entire album. Its eight tracks center on the continuous five-part Tamalpais Suite, inspired by the wonders of the California Mountain and its environs. Each of these pieces unfolds in the same way the landscape might, as it reveals its different aspects in sequence to a hiker, and Krock deftly links one aspect to the next, and one musical influence to another. On “Tamalpais I (Stratus),” clouds and fog roll in on eerily frothing reeds and splashing cymbals. The nervous and labyrinthian “Tamalpais II (Steep Ravine)” offers notable solos from trombonist Grinder and guitarist Hirvonen. The watery world of “Tamalpais III (Stinson Beach)” slowly heats up before exploding in a blistering crescendo. “Tamalpais IV (Dipsea Steps)” searches for a center, opening with vibraphonist Yuhan Su spiraling over a bass trombone figure. “Tamalpais V (Cirrus)” offers a deep-breathing meditation on an ecstatic trumpet line from Kenny Warren. The orchestra’s playing throughout is exceptionally tight and, given the complexities of the music—such as the reeds’ elongated microtonal explorations on “Tamalpais I”—often astounding. Krock, with the able assistance of his carefully chosen musicians, conductor, and producer, stretches the sound of big band jazz into a new era.

* Click on any asterisked link to go to the Amazon page where you can purchase it.If you click through and make purchases there, Musically Speaking will receive a small percentage of the sale. Thank you for your support.

© 2018 Mel Minter