The Decade In Review: Jazz And The Mash-Up
It's difficult to frame the last 10 years in jazz around its "most
important" recordings: What strikes me as most important about
this decade is that musically, anything went. In the age of the
mash-up and the iPod shuffle -- where musically different artists
can sit comfortably against each other -- jazz's continual flexibility
to incorporate any number of sounds and distill them within a
jazz framework is what's made this decade so refreshing.
So what defines "importance?" The musician in me wants to say
that the most important albums were the ones that we believe
to be the most musically skillful or adventurous, or those which
introduce us to a new exciting voice in jazz -- Jason Moran,
The Bad Plus and Brian Blade Fellowship come to mind. But what
about albums with mass crossover appeal like Norah Jones' Come
Away With Me; or recordings pegged to an event, such as Terence
Blanchard's A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina); or
Ornette Coleman's Pulitzer Prize-winning recording Sound Grammar?
What about albums that explore a high-concept multimedia project
like Bill Frisell's Disfarmer and Dave Douglas' Keystone? I think
those are all good choices. They all brought attention to the
music in creative new ways, and all capture their own snapshots
of the 2000s.
One record that really exemplifies that for me is the Bill Frisell/Matt
Chamberlain/Lee Townsend/Tucker Martine project Floratone. Taking
the Teo Macero approach to production, Townsend and Martine crafted
a stunning album from the free studio improvisations of Frisell
and Chamberlain. Floratone's lush production brings in hints
of New Orleans jazz, swampy R&B, surf rock and electronic
music. But it also feels like an inventive and foward-thinking
tapestry of sounds that could have only happened in this decade.
-- Michael Katzif, NPR.org
Most Innovative recording of 2007: "They shaped this record
that's really not a jazz record at all. It's really this swamp
language that I found incredibly interesting and beautiful and
very different." -- Tom Moon, 2007: The Year in Review from All
Songs Considered
“Taking a page from the Miles Davis/Teo Macero playbook,
guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Matt Chamberlain teamed up
with longtime production pals Martine and Townsend to
create this studio-collaged musical masterpiece - but Floratone
doesn't sound anything like Bitches Brew or In a
Silent Way.... The 11 compositions flow one into another
like segments of a steady-moving river - in turns brooding, swampy,
choppy, effervescent, and translucent. Chamberlain's tasteful
grooves and accents provide the deepwater impetus, while Frisell's
soulful vamps, plucky palm-mutes, shimmering harmonics, textural
twang, and spacey atmospherics weave together into so many currents
and undercurrents, as the horn and string lines glide majestically
over the surface. As intriguing as it is enjoyable, Floratone is
easily one of the best records of 2007.” Guitar
Player
“Call it Ambient Americana Sound Sculpting ... The music
on Floratone is largely based around Chamberlain’s
behind-the-beat grooves and Frisell’s left-of-center blues-drenched
chords and phrases... it’s not about soloing per
se; rather it’s about collective interpretation, exploring
all possible nuances.
Floratone shares much, in fact, with Teo Macero’s
collage-like approach to sculpting In a Silent Way,
though with modern digital editing the integration is so seamless
that it’s often impossible to differentiate between live
performance and studio construction. Not that it matters. The
greatest success of Floratone is how organic, how natural the
music sounds, the considerable technology behind it notwithstanding.
Despite all the electronic textures used from conception to final
realization, it’s a distinctive, extremely appealing and
visual collection of sonic landscapes.
There are those who believe that democratic/leaderless projects are
inherently doomed to failure. Floratone is a modern masterpiece—a
completely equitable collaboration between Frisell, Chamberlain,
Townsend and Martine—that lays such claims to waste.” John
Kelman, All About Jazz
“This is some of the most vital and exciting guitar
work Bill Frisell has ever committed to tape.... Listening to
these unlikely swirls of sound is almost like the beginnings
of some exotic new language, rising like steam from a swamp. They're
like nothing else..... it's some of the most riveting
instrumental music to emerge this year.” Tom
Moon, NPR’s All Things Considered
"The fine-tuned soundscapes maintain a satisfyingly hypnotic
menace." UK Financial Times
“A soundscape bonanza infused with a melange of jazz, country,
dub reggae, funk, rock and ambient music.” Dan Ouellette, Billboard
Collaboration seems to suit Bill Frisell.... Although Floratone
is more of a studio creation than I might like‚ the end
result is just too much fun to dismiss on technicalities.
Floratone came out of a 2005 jam session between Frisell and
expolsive, ever-versatile drummer Matt Chamberlain. Frisell responds
to Chamberlain's over-stimulus with a nasty‚ unfiltered
buzz saw sound that kicks you in the ass and says‚ "That…was
an attention-getter!"
After the session‚ Tucker Martine and Lee Townsend‚ got
out the digital chisel and sculpted the raw tracks into an 11-song
set that suggests a Frankenstein-like melding of Wes Montgomery‚ Robert
Johnson and the White Stripes. The producers brought in bassist
Viktor Krauss - another cohort of Frisell's-to anchor the tunes‚ while
texture and scope were added with carefully placed contributions
from cornetist Ron Miles and violist Eyvind Kang.
A lot of Floratone is atmospheric‚ but there's lightning
in the atmosphere.
Your attention stays riveted through "The Wanderer‚" which
is a good walk spoiled by encroaching memory. "Mississippi
Rising" lays down a chugging swamp groove that rolls over
you like a runaway freight train. The funk-jazz "Swamped" and
the looped-out "Louisiana Lowboat" take long‚ sweet
trips on that same train. Even when things get meditative-on
the loping "The Passenger" and the hypnotic "Take
a Look"-the aggressive tone never really wanes.
Martine and Townsend share equal billing with Frisell and Chamberlain
on the album's cover‚ showing that this matrix is bigger
than the usual artist/producer relationship. Of all Frisell's
collaborations‚ Floratone may be his most productive. And
a productive Bill Frisell is a very good thing. - J.Hunter, State
of Mind
It's not hard for the producer to be forgotten when there are
musicians such as guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Matt Chamberlain
running around getting all the credit. It's all too easy for
people to notice the virtuoso talent of the players and forget
they're not the only ones who had a hand in putting together
what you're hearing - and that's why Blue Note supergroup Floratone
was put together, a band which gives the same billing to its
two producers Tucker Martine and Lee Townsend as to its two players.
This is probably down to the way the record was put together,
apparently Frisell and Chamberlain had a series of sessions together
and sent all the recordings over to Martine and Townshend, who
proceeded to chop and edit these jams into 'proper' tracks. On
sending the tracks back to Frisell and Chamberlain they recorded
more parts and brought in able help from Eyvind Kang (on viola),
Ron Miles (on cornet) and Viktor Krauss (on bass) to add the
finishing touches, and the results are quite astonishing. There
is the shadow of Americana and classic folk emerging from Frisell
and Chamberlain's carefully measured playing, but everything
has been reframed by Martine and Townsend in such a way that
you could almost be listening to an album of haunting soundscapes.
It's rare to hear a jazz album (for want of a better term) with
this kind of attention to detail, it's just a pleasure to listen
to from beginning to end and somehow manages to avoid all the
pitfalls of blending jazz and electronics by being straightforward
and innovative without sacrificing any of the players' musical
virtuosity. More than merely an experiment, this is an album
which demands the immediate attention of those of you interested
in the sound of modern jazz from the very fringes. - Bookmat.com
