Damon
Short - Paul Scea Quartet - REMOVABLE MEDIA
---
The
Short-Scea Quartet's Removable Media is the latest
documentation of a musical partnership dating from 1989. Percussionist Damon
Short and multi-reed artist Paul Scea
were brought together for a concert by trumpeter Paul
Smoker in the fall of that year; shortly thereafter Scea was a
featured soloist on Short's All of the
Above (Southport).
| Removable
Media features 8 original works, 4 each by the co-leaders, who
are joined by Ryan Shultz,
bass trumpet, and Noel Kupersmith on bass. The leaders'
compositional styles are contrasting yet complementary,giving the set
its unique character. |
 |
"...
an unusual quartet...an album of spidery spatiality and assertive harmonies,
by turns elusive and full of down-home warmth." -- Lloyd Sachs, Chicago
Sun-Times, 11/29/98
"...
with cool-burn intensity and impressive restraint (the Quartet) sketch(es)
loose melodic contours around wide-open spaces in a way that recalls Archie
Shepp's legendary New York Contemporary Five... a vital piece of the Chicago
jazz puzzle." -- Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader, 12/11/98
"
Exploring the boundaries of freedom with unusual restraint... Short is that
rare bird, a thoughtful, tactful drummer more concerned with a subtle
gesture than a persistent groove (his solo introducing Figure 37 is
positively wistful). By switching from flute to bass clarinet to soprano and
tenor sax, Scea paints a different color on nearly every track. With Ryan
Shultz--possibly jazz's first bass trumpeter of note since Cy Touff--and
bassist Noel Kupersmith, they typically establish a fluid compositional
environment, and let a healthy spontaneous interaction of ideas do the rest."
-- Art Lange, Pulse!, March 1999
"...[The
album] kicks off with Toll Free, which sports what could be an
Ornette head on a 45, played at 33. Kupersmith's bass solo to begin Song
Not Heard veers toward Charlie Haden's unforgettable opening to Lonely
Woman. The head of Figure 37 teases briefly with hints of
Dolphy's Something Sweet, Something Tender. Back from Lunch
is a virtually explicit homage to the title track of Dolphy's masterpiece
Out to Lunch, which it greatly resembles. [strictly speaking,
it's modeled more after Hat and Beard, and also Oliver Nelson's Teenie's
Blues -- ds] Dolphy's track and this one share a bounding bassline
and a monster swing. Scea, on bass clarinet, builds slowly to the heights of
Dolphy's extravagant animation without aping the master's gestures, while
Shultz's bass trumpet swings with graceful exuberance.
At times
Short and Kupersmith are so active on this disc that they threaten to turn
the traditional quartet arrangement on its head - which may be what they had
in mind. On "Toll Free", Removable Media and Raze Al,
most notably, they seem at times to take the lead, while the horns play long
tones in virtually a rhythm mode. But such revolutionary gestures are played
out subtly, as much of this music is abstract and ruminative, with fine
temperature rises at crucial moments (as in Scea's flute solo on "Removable
Media", and during his brief but furious turn on flute, sandwiched
between bass clarinet dialogues on "Song Not Heard"). Another
example of the fine architectonic sense of the whole quartet is the
carefully structured progression from short to long lines on "Figure 37".
This
quartet is not stuck on thirty-year-old models. Scea's tenor on Bullets
sounds more like Evan Parker than someone playing on Free Jazz. It
is a fitting ending to a masterful disc that creates something authentically
new with full and respectful awareness of the old. Recommended." --
Robert Spencer, Cadence, March 1999
"
Drummer Damon Short and reedman-flautist Paul Scea have an
evocative quartet date in Removable Media (Southport 0060). This is a
cooking band. Ryan Shultz and Noel Kupersmith, on bass
trumpet and bass respectively, do not take backseats. That egalitarian
spirit is a strength here, as the pieces are shaped and stamped by everyone
involved. Back From Lunch tips hat (if not beard) to Dolphy, Toll
Free and Raze Al extend creatively Ornette-like melodic lines,
and the title piece and its thematic segue into Figure 37 feed off
free techniques. The music digs and has heart. A thoughtful, driving set
which affirms jazz while stepping freely forward. Paul Smoker does the liner
notes. Worth looking for." -- Doug Lang, Coda, July/August
1999 (Issue 286)
Toll
Free (Short);
Removable
Media (Scea);
Figure
37 (Scea);
Back
from Lunch (Short);
Raze
Al (Scea);
Song
Not Heard (Short);
Swallowing
the Sun (Scea);
Bullets
(Short)
Recorded
in Evanston (Chicago), March 6, 1997, with Paul
Scea, tenor & soprano sax, bass clarinet and flute;
Ryan Shultz, bass trumpet; Noel Kupersmith, bass;
Damon Short, percussion. Engineered by David Baker
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