Category: Jazz

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Perpetual Motions by Gavin Harrison and Antoine Fafard – Album Review

Cover of Perpetual Motions by Gavin Harrison and Antoine Fafard

Inventive musical explorations and collaborations from a virtuosic duo and friends

****

Cover of Perpetual Motions by Gavin Harrison and Antoine Fafard
The cover of Perpetual Mutations. Image by Galina Timofeeva. Graphics by Antoine Fafard.

In classical music, a concerto in which a soloist – such as a pianist or a violinist – performs with an orchestra, is a common form. Less common is the concerto for orchestra, although the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók did write a popular piece of that name, stating that it wasn’t a symphony but a series of soloistic, virtuosic sections for each part of the orchestra, in effect a series of concertos. Now Canadian bass player Antoine Fafard and English drummer Gavin Harrison (Porcupine Tree, The Pineapple Thief, King Crimson) have created a similar concept, a series of nine pieces for jazz duo and a range of soloists who play soprano sax, cello, violin, oboe, Fender Rhodes and piano. The aim of their new album, Perpetual Motions is, ‘to stretch out artistic possibilities and contribute to expanding the musical spectrum.’

Antoine Fafard playing bass guitar
Antoine Fafard. Photo by Colin D Miller.

The duo’s previous album Chemical Reactions was also ground breaking, using string quartet and full orchestra with drums and bass guitar. The title of the new album describes the perpetual change of musical arrangement from one of Fafard’s compositions to the next, the only constant being the playing of Fafard and Harrison on every piece. Remarkably, Fafard presented Harrison with complete recordings to add drums and percussion later; Harrison’s playing perfectly matches the pieces so it’s impossible to tell that his recordings were done separately. Harrison told Raffaella Mezzanzanica of MusicalMind that,

“Having a studio at home means you can do one take or a hundred takes…Sometimes it takes me two days to record a song, but when I listen to it later, I might decide to do it all again. That is the luxury (and curse) of working on your own in your own studio.”

Gavin Harrison playing drums
Gavin Harrison

1 Dark Wind

The opening track begins with a fiercely rhythmic bass line, and big band brass, giving the track a similar feel to Harrison’s 2015 album Cheating the Polygraph, a reimagining of the work of Porcupine Tree for big band. Melodic soprano sax soon takes on virtuosic runs, with aspirational rising chords. There’s an evocative breakdown section with a trombone solo. The piece is often in 5/4, but the rhythmic patterns constantly change. A stunning start to the album.

2 Deadpan Euphoria

The ‘deadpan’ of the title presumably refers to the handpan drums on the track, which create a sound like steel drums. There are also log drums, long cylindrical pieces of wood, hollowed out with slits on the top. Fafard provides lovely, melodic fretless bass which entwines the long sustained notes of the cello – an unusual but very effective combination. The bass guitar drops lower as a liquid, free-flowing guitar surrounds the cello. A lovely track.

3 Viral Information 101

Like the opening track, this begins with a fierce, repeated bass note. Acoustic guitar flourishes with subtle marimba are followed by a folky violin solo. There’s a sudden, romantic slow section with melodic violin that would make excellent film music. The song ends with a gorgeous fretless bass run and exhilaratingly thunderous drums.

Gavin Harrison and Antoine Fafard – Objective Reality (2024)

4 Objective Reality

An unusual song, built around bass guitar harmonics, the same short phrase repeated at different pitches. Above the angular, geometric shapes of the urgently rhythmic backing track a sweet-toned oboe flows like liquid honey, adding vitality and humanity. The track ends with Harrison’s superb percussion runs. An intriguing track.

5 Quiescent II

This short, mellow track features a sprinkling of jazzy Fender Rhodes, and highlights Harrison’s relaxed, loose-limbed drumming which contrasts with his more energetic playing elsewhere on the album. Again, Fafard provides some inspiring fretless bass. The song builds to a climax with rhythmic chords and an insistent theme. A good contrast to other songs on the album.

6 Spontaneous Plan

This song begins with spontaneous piano flourishes, with big band brass that could have come from a John Barry score for a James Bond movie. The piano becomes jazzier and more freestyle as the track progresses. It ends with a joyful burst of brass. The song is energetic and lively, constantly changing and evolving, perfectly expressing the perpetual motion of the album’s title.

7 Pentalogic Structure

Another showcase for the cello, which plays a mysterious melody at the start with gentle guitar, before a chaotic repeated theme surrounds the cello which resolutely continues to plough its own furrow. Fafard told Raffaella Mezzanzanica that he wrote most of the songs on guitar, and this track features a fast-flowing, classical guitar solo which combines virtuosity with a sense of optimism. As the track comes to an end, the cello returns with a slow, angular melody which casts a shadow on the hopefulness of the guitar solo.

8 Solus Souls II

Laid-back piano chords are joined by a searching bass line. Again, as throughout the record, Harrison’s playing is a joy to hear. His subtle, spacey percussion leads to tom tom rolls that gain energy as the track becomes more complex and syncopated.

9 Safety Meeting

Piano chords and more big band brass chords rouse themselves, perhaps to illustrate a meeting of safety officers. Again, a highlight is Fafard’s elegant classical guitar playing, sometimes reminiscent here of another guitar virtuoso, Steve Howe of Yes. He follows this with a limpid bass guitar solo with gentle piano chords. This constantly changing song ends with jazzy piano chords and swelling brass, ending an excellent, varied collection of songs from two superb musicians and a range of performers from across the world.

Personnel

Gavin Harrison: Drums and Marimba
Antoine Fafard: Electric Bass and Classical Guitar
Jean-Pierre Zanella: Soprano Saxophone on track 1
Dale Devoe: Trombones and Trumpets on tracks 1, 6 and 9
Joasia Cieslak: Cello on track 2
Isodora Filipovic: Cello on track 7
Reinaldo Ocando: Marimba and Vibraphone on track 3
Pier Luigi Salami: Piano and Rhodes – Piano on tracks 6, 8, 9; Rhodes on track 5
Tadeusz Palosz: Handpans and Log Drum on track 2
Ally Storch: Violin on track 3
Rodrigo Escalona: Oboe on track 4

Sources

Mezzanzanica, R. Antoine Fafard unveils some “secrets” behind “Perpetual Mutations”, his new album with Gavin Harrison (MusicalMind 16 May 2024)

Mezzanzanica, R. Gavin Harrison talks about “Perpetual Mutations”, how to keep his balance and his view on the future of Porcupine Tree and King Crimson (MusicalMind 27 May 2024)

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Fragments by Trifecta – Album Review

*****

New Prog supergroup bring joy in fragmented times

Drummer Craig Blundell, keyboard player Adam Holzman and bass player Nick Beggs began playing together on Steven Wilson’s Hand. Cannot. Erase tour in 2015. They also joined Steven on his To the Bone tour in 2018 and 2019. When Steven went off for a cup of tea after a brief soundcheck, the three others would remain on stage to jam together, creating what they described as a ‘jazz club’. They recorded each other on their phones as they played, and decided to use these recordings as the basis of some of the songs for the new Trifecta project. The result is a version of jazz rock fusion, almost entirely instrumental, in a style described by Nick Beggs as ‘Fission! It’s like Fusion but less efficient and more dangerous … with fall out.’ The outcome is an explosion of joyful, melodic virtuosity.

Beggs and Holzman were due to tour with Steven Wilson again but tours due in 2020 and again in 2021 were cancelled due to Covid-19. Like many artists, the three members of Trifecta collaborated remotely during lockdown – Beggs and Blundell in England and Holzman in New York. But whereas the work of another Steven Wilson alumnus Richard Barbieri Under a Spell described darkly trouble dreams in lockdown, Trifecta cast a genial spell on tracks that they each completed at home before Holzman mixed the heady brew in his home studio. Further magic was sprinkled by expert mastering engineer Andy VanDette (who also worked on some of the Porcupine Tree albums). The light-hearted nature of the collaboration is shown by some of the tiles of the 15 ‘fragments’ that make up the album, such as ‘Clean Up On Aisle Five’ and ‘Nightmare In Shining Armour’. But don’t let that distract you from the serious levels of musicianship on display here.

Nick Beggs’ dry humour is evident on the only track that features vocals, the gently enticing Pavlov’s Dog Killed Schrodinger’s Cat, the lyrics of which he describes as ‘written from the perspective of a layman trying to understand quantum mechanics … and failing’. They include such memorable lines as ‘Wrestled to the ground by your quantum theory/ I’ve listened to your talk until my eyes grew weary’.

Despite the consistently high level of inventiveness and virtuosity shown by all three players, planting them firmly in prog rock territory, none of the songs are prog epics in terms of length; all of the 15 tracks are beautifully-crafted miniatures of around 3 minutes. The whole album is only 45 minutes long. Steven Wilson has recently called for a return to the shorter-form album, and his latest release The Future Bites lasts 42 minutes.

Opening track Clean Up On Aisle Five with its swirling keyboards, strong melody and powerful drumming is reminiscent of another prog rock supergroup, U.K. (John Wetton, Bill Bruford, Eddie Jobson and Alan Holdsworth) on their track ‘In the Dead of Night’, although without the impassioned vocals.

Other highlights include Proto Molecule with its amazingly funky bassline – worthy of Jaco Pastorius – evocative keyboard lines, syncopated jazz-funk riffing, and a delightful interplay between both instruments. There is more Jaco-style bass at the start of Nightmare in Shining Armor.

The Enigma of Mr Fripp cheerfully acknowledges its debt to Robert Fripp of King Crimson. It encapsulates all that is great about that band in less than three minutes. Nick Beggs plays Chapman Stick with Fripp-like intensity, the lines spiralling around each other. There are dystopian drums, sudden key changes, warm mellotron washes and rhythmic illusions. A complete King Crimson album in miniature. The track suddenly stops, delightfully segueing into the ultra-cool jazz keyboards of the next track Sally Doo-Dally.

Have You Seen What the Neighbours are Doing refers to the house next to Adam Holzman’s in the North Bronx, left empty when the man living there disappeared. It could easily have come from the soundtrack to a 1970s movie like Shaft. It begins with a disturbing film-noir scenario, with a looping funky bassline and luminous synths. There’s dirty distortion on the Fender Rhodes-like solo, adding to the sleaze. Holzman uses a similar sound on his recent live album The Last Gig.

The whole album is an unexpected lockdown delight that reveals its deep treasures with repeated listening. Two important questions remain. Are Trifecta working on new material, and will they ever tour? Hopefully the answer to both questions is yes!

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The Last Gig by Adam Holzman and Brave New World – Album Review

Impeccable live jazz-rock from former Miles Davis music director and Steven Wilson’s keyboard player

*****

On 12 March 2020, keyboard player Adam Holzman and his band Brave New World drove to the Nublu club to soundcheck for a gig that night. The global pandemic was about to close New York City. Broadway had just shut down, but as Adam said later, ‘we decided to play anyway. Something big was coming, and who knew when we’d be able to perform again?… Only about 18 hardcore fans showed up.’

Adam Holzman has been Steven Wilson’s regular keyboard player since he joined the Grace for Drowning tour in late 2011 in support of Steven’s second solo album.

But Adam’s musical pedigree goes back much further than that; most notably he was with Miles Davis’ band for nearly five years, eventually becoming Miles’ musical director. And going back further still, Adam’s father is Jac Holzman, founder of Elektra Records (who signed The Doors) and Nonesuch Records (who began by specialising in European Early Music, but also commissioned the pioneering electronic album Silver Apples of the Moon, by the American composer Morton Subotnick in 1967). Adam tells stories of when he was a boy and Jim Morrison came to the house, and Adam showed Jim his toy keyboard and tape recorder; quiet moments when Jim was far from his rebellious and controversial public persona. Young Adam was also hugely influenced by The Doors’ keyboard player Ray Manzarek.

The album opens with Intro – The Age of Fear with dystopian synth noises, and ominous voices intoning, ‘The age of fear; the creative spirit must fight to stay alive’, words that take on a poignant significance in this context. But since the 1980s, Adam has made music under the title ‘Optimistic music in the time of fear’, so perhaps there is hope, and the vigorous drum solo from Gene Lake, with bubbling analogue synth sounds suggest that there is still life in music.

On the tour to support Steven Wilson’s third solo album, The Raven That Refused to Sing,  Adam began to do piano improvisations each night at the start of Deform to Form a Star, a song from Steven’s second solo album Grace for Drowning. He collected them together on The Deform Variations in 2015. The second track Pianodemic is another in that tradition, a moment of optimism despite the reference to the Pandemic in the title.

The next three tracks are taken from Adam’s 2018 album Truth Decay. As is often the case with jazz, the live versions have more power and energy than the studio versions, good though they are. The first of these, Ectoplasm, bursts into life with fierce drumming and cool Fender Rhodes keyboards. On the NewEars Prog Show podcast Adam described the Fender as ‘the electric guitar of jazz’, and it plays an important role on this album (although the instrument Adam plays is a Korg SV1 Stage Vintage piano). Throughout the album, Adam gives space to the other players in the band rather than just showing off his keyboard skills, virtuosic as they are, so the album feels like a true band album.

The next track, Phobia has a lovely, spacey, open feel with an atmospheric main theme with evocative harmonies. It gives all the band their chance to shine above the backbeat – first Adam with some distorted Fender Rhodes sounds, then Ofer Assaf, with evocative saxophone, then Jane Getter on heavily echoed guitar. An excellent track.

Growing up as the son of a record company executive, Adam could easily have had a very cynical view of the music industry, the kind of view expressed by a relative who might have said, Good Luck with your Music, in the way that we might say, ‘good luck with that.’ But Adam’s father has been supportive of his son, and it seems that Adam has retained his joy in music making. This is a seriously funky track with an earworm for a chorus, featuring excellent rumbling bass playing from Freddy Cash jr.

Adam originally recorded Maze, a Miles Davis song in 1985, live in the studio just before the sessions for Miles’ 1986 album Tutu. The track finally appeared on the Rubberband album released in 2019. Adam described the track as having, ‘a killer groove…with a flat-out burning solo.’

The final song, Abandoner is a cover of a track from Steven Wilson’s first solo album Insurgentes. The original track begins with a lovely, introspective quality, and Steven’s plaintive vocals are replaced here with soulful saxophone playing from Ofer Assaf. As the title suggests, the song is about loss and abandonment, and Adam’s version perfectly captures this. Steven’s song descends into terrifying noise, perhaps reflecting bitterness and anger at being abandoned. Adam’s version takes a slightly quieter, but equally effective approach.

This is a stunning live album, although it often sounds like a studio album both because of the quality of the playing and the recording, and the fact that the audience is small due to the Pandemic. Holzman says, ‘As of now, it’s still the last gig’. Let’s hope it’s not too long before he is able to tour again.

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Chemical Reactions by Gavin Harrison and Antoine Fafard – Album Review

*****

Gavin Harrison and Antoine Fafard prove that fusing jazz, rock and classical music does work

Graphic design by Antoine Fafard

In music, the words ‘fusion’ or ‘crossover’ used to a warning for any sensible music lover to run for the hills. Very fast. Musical genres such as classical, rock, pop and jazz have worked independently of each other, very successfully, for decades if not centuries, but attempting to splice their DNA together has sometimes resulted in disturbing mutations. It is therefore a pleasure to report that fusing the muscular but subtle and intelligent drumming of Gavin Harrison, and the jazz bass playing of Antoine Fafard, with a string quartet and even an orchestra, actually works.

It helps that Gavin is probably one of the best drummers in the world at present, having performed as a session musician but also as a member of Porcupine Tree and more recently King Crimson, also releasing a stunning solo album of big band arrangements Cheating the Polygraph a few years ago. To appreciate the quality of his drumming, listen to the opening of the second track on this new album, Atonic Water which begins with half-speed, laconic, almost lazy drumming which is joined by fast, buzzing strings, creating the illusion of two time frames running in parallel. Gavin has written about rhythmic illusions in the past and here he puts his theory into thrilling practice.

Antoine shows what a fine jazz bass player he is in the opening track Transmutation Circle, making fast runs high up the fretboard when he is soloing, sounding almost like a jazz guitarist at times, but also providing a solid underpinning when the music demands that he sounds more like a conventional rock player.

The first five tracks of the album, which also include Vision of a Lost Orbit, Pair of a Perfect Four and Proto Mundi feature a string quartet, made up of Maria Grig who overdubbed all the violin and viola parts and Jonathan Gerstner on cello. They bring great precision and intensity to these opening tracks. Gavin also plays marimba, helping to create a mellower vibe to balance the intensity.

The sixth track Singular Quartz adds Jerry Goodman on electric and acoustic violins, sometimes recalling the virtuosic performances of Eddie Jobson, who played violin for Frank Zappa and Roxy Music among many others.

In the last two tracks on the album Holding Back the Clock and Chemical Reactions the landscape suddenly up opens much wider, a lovely way to end an album that began with the intimate intensity of the string quartet and gradually opened out as more instruments are added. Both tracks feature the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Anthony Armore, recorded in Ostrava in the Czech Republic as long ago as March 2016. They have a cinematic sweep that makes a superb climax to the album. In the documentary about the making of the album, Antoine says that he wanted real players rather than samples because of the subtleties that can bring. Gavin says he had worked with sampled instruments before but enjoyed working with ‘the living breathing organic unity’ that a real orchestra can provide. You can almost sense the joy in the playing of both musicians, particularly Antoine’s inspired bass soloing in the title track Chemical Reactions, and Gavin’s passionately animated drumming around four minutes in. The track rounds off a highly satisfying album that repays repeated listening to reveal all its subtle pleasures; listen on decent speakers or headphones if you can to enjoy its riches in full.

Track list

1 Transmutation Circle

2 Atonic Water

3 Vision of a Lost Orbit

4 Pair of a Perfect Four

5 Proto Mundi

6 Singular Quartz

7 Holding Back the Clock

8 Chemical Reactions

Musicians

Gavin Harrison drums and marimba (tracks 1 – 5) drums (tracks 6 – 8)

Antoine Fafard bass (all tracks)

Maria Grig violins and viola (tracks 1 – 5)

Jonathan Gerstner cello (tracks 1 – 5)

Jerry Goodman acoustic and electric violin (track 6)

Avigail Arad Cello (track 6)

Reinaldo Ocando marimba and vibraphone (track 6)

Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Anthony Armore (tracks 7 – 8)

Chemical Reactions is released on 11 December on the Harmonic Heresy label.