Evocation documents a 2011 performance held at the NYC music space Roulette, organized by curator-vocalist Thomas Buckner as part of his long-running Interpretations series at the venue, that brought together Andrew Cyrille on drums and percussion, Elliott Sharp on 8-string guitarbass, bass clarinet, and electronics, and Richard Teitelbaum on piano, computer, and sampler. The brilliant and unpredictable results of this creative meeting are out September 30 on compact disc in a six panel wallet and on cassette tucked into a wraparound paper sleeve through the auspices of the Infrequent Seams label.
Even over the long span of decades, it’s easy to pinpoint how I first heard Andrew Cyrille. ‘twas Unit Structures, pianist Cecil Taylor’s 1966 masterwork for the Blue Note label, which I purchased in ’89, shortly after graduating from high school, on CD, as vinyl was rapidly disappearing in most suburban record stores at that point. Gripping and beautiful, Unit Structures served as my gateway into dozens of Cyrille’s recordings, including a bunch more with Taylor.
There was also Cyrille’s input on Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra for Impulse from ’69, Marion Brown’s Afternoon of a Georgia Faun for ECM from 1970, plus Grachan Moncur III’s New Africa and fellow Taylor alum Jimmy Lyons’ Other Afternoons, both released in ’69 as part of the BYG Actuel label’s rapid-fire burst of avant-freedom.
Of Evocation’s three participants, Cyrille has the deepest ties to jazz tradition, having debuted on record in support of the great saxophonist Coleman Hawkins on The Hawk Relaxes, recorded in 1961 and released by Prestige subsidiary Moodsville. However, Cyrille’s albums as leader or co-leader are obviously more representative of his approach, starting with debut What About?, an LP of consummate solo drums released as part of the BYG Actuel series mentioned above.
There’s also the striking Nuba, with Jeanne Lee and Lyons, issued in 1979 by Black Saint, and Pieces of Time, an appealing drum summit with Kenny “Klook” Clarke, Milford Graves and Famoudou Don Moye that was released in ’84 by Soul Note. More recently, there have been a few sets for ECM with Bill Frisell in common (the superb The Declaration of Musical Independence notably features Richard Teitelbaum in the lineup), and earlier this year for the TUM label, there was the outstanding 2 Blues for Cecil with William Parker and Enrico Rava.
Teitelbaum, a New Yorker by birth who passed in 2020, likely remains best known for his role in the groundbreaking Italian electroacoustic outfit Musica Elettronica Viva, though my first encounter with him was through Time Zones, his duo record cut with Anthony Braxton that Arista Freedom put out in ’76. I plucked my copy of Time Zones from a used bin in the early ’90s and not long after tracked down Live Electronic Music Improvised, the ’70 split LP on the Mainstream label that paired Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV for short) with another heavyweight electroacoustic ensemble, AMM.
MEV’s record for BYG Actuel, Leave the City, came to me later still, as did Teitelbaum playing assorted Moog synths on George Lewis’ cornerstone masterpiece, Homage to Charles Parker, released in ’79 on Black Saint. Lewis’ record, while far (real, real far) from a straight ahead jazz shebang, still helps to illuminate Teitelbaum’s versatility.
Although generally tagged as a free improvisor, Teitelbaum’s fruitfully collaborated with Steve Lacy, Leroy Jenkins (on ’79’s Space Minds, New Worlds, Survival of America, with Cyrille), and Marilyn Crispell, all trailblazers with deep connections to the jazz root. There’s also Double Clutch, a duo album with Cyrille recorded in ’81 and released in ’97 on the Silkheart label.
My (unconscious) introduction to Elliott Sharp came through a compilation LP he put out in 1982 on his Zoar label, State of the Union, where he was a member of the outfits Sonorexia (playing bass clarinet) and the Hi-Sheriffs of Blue (playing tenor sax). State of the Union was a fascinating blur of pieces largely one-minute long, but a more proper introduction to Sharp came through his band Carbon, notably on Homestead Records’ Speed Trials compilation, which documented the 5-day music and performance festival of the title that was held at White Columns in NYC, May 4-8, 1983.
Sharp was also in the terribly underrated Mofungo for a series of records on Twin/Tone and SST, and was part of the trios Semantics with Ned Rothenberg and Samm Bennett and Bootstrappers with Mike Watt and George Hurley. The second Semantics record was issued by SST and the Bootstrappers set came out on New Alliance, label relationships that placed Sharp in the wide open experimental milieu that emerged as an alternative to the increasingly underwhelming ’80s punk and hardcore scene. Barreling into the ’90s, Sharp has flourished in a variety of contexts and with a voluminous discography.
All this background should hopefully drive home the wide spectrum of experience that propels Evocation into the realms of the remarkable. With this said, the performance heard here, a captivating example of pure improvisation that flows for nearly 46 minutes (issued in five sections), benefits from the players’ expertise and familiarity, and specifically a shared knowledge of tactics.
Part of what makes Evocation so thrilling is how Teitelbaum samples both Sharp and Cyrille and then reintroduces them into the weave of the performance. And in “Opening,” it’s pretty clear that Teitelbaum has captured some snippets prior to the performance, as there is this achy, almost Zorn-like horn moan that comes out of nowhere as Sharp is already audibly playing. Additionally, in “Singularity to Unity,” there’s some wild bowed string action that doesn’t seem to jibe with the credited instrumentation.
Evocation is surely abstract, but it downplays aural mayhem, instead delivering an extended engagement with the textural, with tensions and mysteriousness proliferating over explosiveness and skronk. That’s not to infer the performance is devoid of fireworks, as all five sections offer passages where the intensity rises and the trio spits out a few sparks.
And yet, even during these stretches, there’s a palpable sense of control that emphasizes the electroacoustic ambiences over the atmospheres of avant-jazz. Cyrille and Sharp are in masterful form, but Teitelbaum’s synth wiggles, his computer squiggles, the pulsations, the metallic crickets, the radio transmissions, the bird calls, the manipulated sound of a cow lowing (I think), the echoes and the assorted samples low in the mix, all deepen Evocation’s uniqueness. The performance occurred over ten years ago but will still sound fresh and exciting decades from now.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
