Artist: Bobby Bradford, Mark Dresser, Glenn Ferris
Album: Live in LA
Genre: Modern Creative, Chamber Jazz
Label: Clean Feed
Released: 2011
Quality: FLAC (tracks+.cue)
Tracklist:
- For Bradford (8:11)
- Purge (7:08)
- BBJC (6:23)
- Pandas Run (7:26)
- In My Dream (4:02)
- Bamboo Shoots (10:03)
- Comin On (8:06)
- Ready To Go (6:38)
DOWNLOAD FROM FILECAT.NET >>>
- Personnel:
- Bobby Bradford - cornet
- Glenn Ferris - trombone
- Mark Dresser - double bass
This is a trio of living musical poets. Cornetist Bobby Bradford was the partner of John Carter until the death of this astonishing clarinetist and he played with giants like Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, Charlie Haden and David Murray. Trombonist Glenn Ferris’ curriculum goes from the Don Ellis and Harry James big bands, the rock–jazz bands of Frank Zappa and Billy Cobham and to a multitude of other groups, including those of Tony Scott and Steve Lacy. Double Bassist Mark Dresser, one of the foremost players on the scene, has shared the bandstand with Anthony Braxton, Ray Anderson, John Zorn, Anthony Davis, Dave Douglas, Joe Lovano and many other artists. Bobby, Mark and Glenn came together in the middle-late 70’s through Bobby, who was (and is) a well respected figure head of the “creative music” LA scene. Bobby had his own club-concert room in Altadena California called the “Little Big Horn”. This is where they would join their creative forces with other musicians such as John Carter and James Newton. They had always talked about recording together but life took them to other places and dimensions. And time just passed by. In 2009, Glenn made a very rare visit to LA and contacted Bobby and Mark about finally getting some of their music documented. Glenn brought recording equipment with him and they let the tape roll: in the living room of trombonist-composer Bruce Fowlers house. Since several years now, Glenn video interviews musicians with one question.“What is Beautiful Music for You?”. You can hear the collective answer from Bobby, Mark and Glenn on this very beautiful and historically important recording. ~ cleanfeed-records.com
LA trumpeter/cornetist Bobby Bradford is a living legend of free jazz music. He grew up in Fort Worth, Texas and played with childhood friend Ornette Coleman, eventually replacing Don Cherry in Coleman's quartet years later, after a stint in the Air Force, and the move to California. He enjoyed a long and fruitful association with reed master John Carter, another Texas transplant, that lasted until Carter's death. Glenn Ferris began playing trombone as a professional in the ahead-of-its-time Don Ellis Orchestra in 1968, when he was just 18. In 1972, he went out on the road with Frank Zappa, and ultimately landed in France, where he continues to teach and play presently. Mark Dresser first played with Bradford in the early '70s, in a group with David Murray on saxophone and James Newton on flute, helmed by future music critic/drummer Stanley Crouch. He moved to Italy via a Fulbright Fellowship to study with Franco Petracchi, then to New York for 18 years playing with Anthony Braxton and other leaders of the free jazz continuum, before returning to San Diego to teach at UCSD. Live In LA represents a sublime collaborative effort between three master musicians at the top of their game. All of these guys share a very strong rhythmic component - allowing them to breathe together as a unit despite the absence of drums. Indeed, Dresser performs a sort of double duty-keeping time not only through the surety of his bass line flow, but also with well-timed percussive effects that drive the pulse forward. Dresser's "For Bradford," opens the disc, and the polyphony of the two horns over the shifting metrics of the bass is well established when Ferris muscles to the front with bluesy repetitions and swinging lines, soon joined by the fat, smearing remarks of Bradford. They solo together, then suddenly Dresser surfaces with his trademarked double-glissandi and chromatic strumming. "In My Dream," an original by the trombonist, begins with a fanfare like melody, and when Dresser breaks into straight "time" playing, the results are ecstatic, opening up a bed of support for Ferris' ebullient, swinging solo. On "Pandas Run" and "Bamboo Shoots," the three players create remarkably cogent, on-the-spot group improvisations that bear the same weight as the more composed material. Bradford lays out long lines of chromatic sequences, then rests, as Ferris takes over with burring, slurring commentary. Dresser's bass is always muscular and adroit, and his hands are so powerful, he occasionally makes his strings sound like rubber-bands about to snap. "Bbjc," by the bassist, opens with Bradford and Ferris engaged in echoing lines while Dresser alternates between furious walking, shifting pedal tones and brief moments of violent string slapping. Bradford and Ferris solo in tandem - the trumpeter's insistent trills often drawing short bursts of multiphonics from the trombone in reply. Bradford even whips out the plunger-mute for some gutbucket discourse - a true aural delight. ~ robert bush, sandiegoreader.com, december 2011
All three of the musicians assembled here have impeccable free-jazz credentials, including longstanding associations with folks like Ornette Coleman, Anthony Braxton, Frank Zappa, Steve Lacy and, most importantly, one another. Although this is their first recording (set up on the fly in trombonist Bruce Fowler’s house in 2009), Bradford, Dresser and Ferris have been gigging together off and on for decades. Perhaps that’s why this music escapes some of the more predictable tropes and meandering of much “free jazz” - it’s continually purposeful, resourceful, coherent and surprising, while retaining the open-mindedness and high-wire tension and agility that makes the genre so invigorating. The ensemble is so inside each other that they hold our attention, but this is no cerebral exercise that you have to “get.” It grabs you and brings you along for some educated experimentation that is no less swinging for being highly evolved. One of the first things that corrals you is the shifting dynamics of the brass and bass lineup. Bradford’s trumpet and Ferris’s trombone surge together with superb timing on unison phrases during “For Bradford,” “BBJC” and the closing of “In My Dream.” But just as often Ferris’s low-toned, slippery lines create a bridge between the higher trumpet and the throbbing bass, until they morph into different roles, orbiting and weaving in various combinations of solos, twos and threes. Bradford likes to splat as often as most trombonists, and Dresser’s strong-handed bass rhythms and phrases are as capable of studding notes into a string of charms as any soloing horn player. The three songs by Ferris contain the most structure. “Purge” is a particular highlight, a Mingusian concoction of breathy, brash and bluesy colors in chromatic counterpoint that eventually spirals downward. “In My Dream,” also by Ferris, contains the most sprightly, overtly pop melody, but it is rendered with a twist, as Bradford leads and all three finish the little hooks. Of the two tunes that are collectively improvised (at least all three share songwriting credit), Dresser takes the lead on much of “Pandas Run,” varying strums and single-note plucking, then laying in some more trebly, thwacking, looser-stringed accents. “Bamboo Shoots” contains much of the classic free jazz feel I’d expected to hear, with some chimes, a spacey ambiance, Dresser bowing while the brass murmur and speak in tongues - impressionistic cacophony and rumination. It’s solid stuff, but simply doesn’t have the same compelling and commanding ebb-and-flow as the rest of the disc. Live In L.A. arrived at a time that almost guarantees it will fall through the gap of most best-of lists - too late for serious consideration in 2011, and too early to hold prominence in 2012. But rare is the jazz disc that is more enjoyable, in any year. ~ britt robson, ioda pick, january 2012
Mr. Dresser also plays a pivotal role on “Live in L.A.” (Clean Feed), a more casual recording featuring the trumpeter Bobby Bradford and the trombonist Glenn Ferris, both veterans of the avant-garde. Their performance, from 2009, unfolds as rough-and-tumble sport, but not without a framework: only two of the eight tracks here are whole-cloth inventions. The others, especially three by Mr. Ferris, tend to build on the blues, with an unambiguous feeling for swing. “For Bradford,” a tune by Mr. Dresser — at one point it was in the repertory of Trio M — suggests the shifting tonalities of Mr. Bradford’s old associate Ornette Coleman. Both Mr. Bradford and Mr. Ferris play with pugnacious alertness, doing some of their best work in an improvised tandem. Mr. Dresser is the anchor in their midst, and every bit as active with his use of contrapuntal texture. ~ nate chinen, new york times, january 10, 2012
Live in L.A. (CF 241) documents a performance from a trio consisting of trumpeter Bobby Bradford, bassist Mark Dresser, and trombonist Glenn Ferris. Bradford’s a Mississippi-born, Texas-bred Californian and familiar of Fort Worth eminences Ornette Coleman (he’s all over Science Fiction) and John Carter who’s led his own Mo’tet since the early ’90s. Dresser’s worked with Anthony Braxton, among others, while Ferris is an Angeleno who’s lived and taught in France since the ’80s. Together they play a cerebral brand of chamber jazz, with Bradford — heard here on cornet — and Ferris intertwining contrapuntal lines and Dresser moving seamlessly between arco and pizzicato attacks. On “Bamboo Shoots,” all three instruments play vocally-inflected lines, to which one of the musicians adds a sung response. An intimately alive and organic set.