October 2006 gig reviews by Chris Parker

Herb Roberton's NY Downtown Allstars

Monday 2

Herb Robertson's NY Downtown Allstars (2) were billed as possessing 'power chops' and we were promised 'sneaky lyricism and dexterity with mutes' to boot.

The actual event entirely vindicated such a build-up: the promiscuous, not to say often arbitrary and occasionally arch eclecticism that sometimes overeggs the Downtown pudding is tempered, in Robertson's music, by a wholehearted, unequivocal commitment to free improvisation that it is tempting to ascribe to his lengthy sojourns in Europe.

Two set-long pieces comprised the performance: 'Six Fragments' and 'Elaboration' contained just enough time playing (ranging from pounding, sometimes downright galumphing rhythms beaten out by the doyen of such percussionists, Tom Rainey) to confer complementary significance on the lengthy freer solo/duo passages with which they were interspersed, and the slow coalescing of, say, almost dreamily contemplative muted trumpet musings (not to mention vocalised sounds ranging from gulps and gobbles to smears and lip-smacks) into exhilarating ensemble free-for-alls was among the music's chief attractions.

The odd 'themes' (often a haunting, repeated series of almost tentatively played notes emerging from a stew of multi-textured sound) thus served as fixed points between which the various bandmembers plotted their courses: bassist Mark Dresser's darkly sonorous arco work alternating with his fiercely percussive plucking; Sylvie Courvoisier drawing thunder from the piano's insides with mallets before crashing, flat-handed, up and down the keyboard or illuminating free passages with delicate repeated right-hand trills; Tim Berne frequently resorting to the production of throat-singing-like overtones on his alto, or whipping up the band sound to a climax with his trademark freneticism; Robertson calmly overseeing the whole and contributing an extraordinary range of sounds to the mix, roilingly energetic one minute, serenely brooding the next.

Overall, then, a consistently intriguing, at times breathtakingly exciting two hours of rich, dense, allusive music played by a band that richly deserves its 'allstar' billing.

October 2006
gig reviews

Gig reviews archive

Herb Roberton's NY Downtown Allstars

Monday 2

Join the Vortex
email list

RSS feeds

October 2006 gig reviews

Gig reviews archive

Herb Roberton's NY Downtown Allstars

Monday 2

Join the Vortex email list

RSS feeds

October 2006
gig reviews

Join the Vortex
email list