Programme
Coming soon
Directions
About The Vortex
News
FAQs
Gig reviews
CD reviews
Book reviewsHire
Agency
Features
Membership
Support The Vortex
Links
Contact
Gig requests
Videos
CD reviews
Browse CD reviews
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Join the Vortex
email list
To receive monthly gig details, news and ticket offers.
RSS feeds
For news, gig and CD reviews and information about the club.
Click on the link below to get the subscribe address
Vortex
news 
For more informaton about RSS see the
RSS help pages
Jason Adasiewicz's Rolldown
Varmint
Cuneiform Records Rune 292
Locating
the vibrant, freewheeling music on this, Rolldown's second album, by identifying
its roots in the freer 1960s Blue Note recordings (Andrew Hill, Eric Dolphy,
Sam Rivers et al.) and in its home city Chicago's improvised music scene
(Art Ensemble, AACM, Sun Ra) provides a useful shortcut for those new to
the band, but might leave them unprepared for the thoroughly contemporary
nature of Jason Adasiewicz's compositions, which bristle with all the viscerally
affecting energy of the current avant-rock scene in which he used to operate.
The manner of his vibes playing, intense and percussive, is a result of his realisation that the instrument 'was part of the percussion family where you could beat the shit out of it', but he himself issues an immediate caveat: 'I was also fascinated with [its] melody.' Accordingly, much of the material on Varmint is changes-based, but infused with the sort of informal, brawling energy that characterises the work of another Chicago influence on Adasiewicz, Ken Vandermark.
The dry, slippery, slightly tart alto sound of Aram Shelton immediately brings another 1960s Blue Note stalwart, Jackie McLean, to mind and Josh Berman's cornet provides the perfect front-line complement, but it is the fierce interactiveness of the entire group (completed by bassist Jason Roebke and drummer Frank Rosaly) that makes this such a compelling recording; if the quintet can generate this much heat in a studio, their live sound must indeed be something special.
