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Gary Hassay and Anne LeBaron
perform a series of intimate and unpredictable duets on Blackwater Bridge. LeBaron's
extended techniques on harp yield a unique repertory of buzzes, hisses, and drones along
with the more usual strums and plucking sounds, an imaginative complement to Hassay's
fervent yet controlled alto saxophone. Very intriguing and rewarding listening.
These generally quiet free improvisations are sensitively realized and oddly
intriguing. |
IAJRC
Journal
Winter 2002/2003 Stuart
Kremsky |
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Hassay and LeBaron clearly
enjoy a challenge, dancing rhythmically through their alto saxophone and harp duet
session, Anne working the beat around with her grip of steel. It is surprising how
well this combination works, though there is a very spooky quality to some of this music.
LeBaron's techniques such as bow on harp mesmerize, while Hassay's alto revels in
an atmosphere far removed from conventional jazz accompaniment. The harp's sound
carries as much punch as piano, though LeBaron spends a minimum amount of time evoking
thunder, altering the harp's traditional tones with metal slides, electronics, and
unconventional techniques. Hassay puts his own spin on this by adopting some
playhouse tones to heckle the infrequent moments of "proper" harp play.
LeBaron likes to experiment and some of this gets loopy, her supple lines mined with
adventurous effects, at times sounding like a wire coat hanger hitting a shopping
cart. They sense where each other is going so well, it seems telepathic. The
contrast between the two instruments could easily create a feeling of collision but here
is a happy example of apples and oranges fitting together quite nicely. |
Coda
Issue 308 Steve
Vickery |
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Here is, to my way, one of
the masterpiece of Drimala Records: it is about a duet constituted of Gary Hassay (alto
saxophone) and Anne LeBaron (harp, percussion, Bertoia sound sculpture). The former
worked since 19979 wiht Fred Frith, Andrew Cyrille, Peter Brotzmann, Tom Cora, Paul
Rodgers, Keshaven Maslak or "Borbetomagas" and developed a very nice alto sound,
veil harsh and vibrating, rough, between Gianni Gebbia, Max Nagl, and Evan Parker.
The other studies with Gyorgy Ligeti, played with Muhal Richard Abrams, Paul Lovens, Ernst
Reijeger, Derek Bailey...and specialized herself in electronic exploration of the harp and
prepared harp. Here, her instrument resonates moreover like no other: time to time
Koto or disacorded guitar or even almost a piano. Violent or whispered, dry/sharp or
mature, these improvisations are elaborate, all along tracks, a tender, intimate and
poignant free. |
ImproJazz
#95, Mayy 2003 Marc
Sarrazy
translation by
Heddy Boubaker |
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Making a list of dedicated
harpists who excel in -- or even play -- free form music doesn't take too long. In
improvised music, for instance, there's Briton Rhodri Davies and American Zeena Parkins
and ... Davies and Parkins. In jazz there was Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane and, ...
unsurprisingly, Ashby and Coltrane.
However Blackwater Bridge, an exacting duo disc featuring alto saxophonist
Gary Hassay, definitely adds harpist Anne LeBaron to that stellar company. Considering the
unadorned musical circumstances here, her work may be even more noteworthy. After all,
solo saxophone doesn't provide much back up.
LeBaron, who is also a composer and educator in
California, has been experimenting with her axe since the 1970s and has played and
recorded with other visionaries like pianist Muhal Richard Abrams and guitarist Derek
Bailey. Hassay, from Allentown, Penn., has been involved in free music since the late
1970s and collaborated with a host of like-minded musicians, most notably as part of the
Ye Ren trio with bassist William Parker and percussionist Toshi Makihara. Yet a two-person
session like this throws a musicians' talents, skills and weaknesses in even bolder
relief, with only one partner upon whom to rely.
It's definitely Anne LeBaron's show all the way. While
the alto saxophonist often moves between energy tones and silences, using chirps and
double tonguing, he seems to be repeating the same pattern in the background. It's one
part 1960s Energy Music, one part hushed BritImprov, with both parts monochromic.
Meanwhile LeBaron displays a lot more than the usual
glissandos we associate with harps. She buzzes like an electric guitar, uses her lowest
strings for string bass ostinato, clawhammers out a few banjo notes and produces tones as
harsh as nails scratching across a blackboard. Perhaps it's the use of sound sculpture
that allows her to create this way. Certainly on "Betty's Place" at points she
seems to be ringing bells, exploring a prepared piano, and -- if it's possible -- even
bouncing objects off her strings. Because of this challenge as well, Hassay is roused from
his usual adagio pace up to andante for a few minutes. However on "FRISSON" when
what appears to be the sounds of a squirrel scurries up and down the strings are succeeded
by a real dance melody from the harp, he seems to squelch the excitement with a prolonged
renal honk.
Most illustrative is the longest and most abstract
track "G, K and the Lady Gray," which goes from barely audible to high energy in
slightly more than 11 minutes. As the harpist plucks strings and crashes cymbals, Hassay
breathes out chirping reverberated grace notes, often squeaking in hummingbird range.
After a passage where it literally appears as if she's creating delicate court music from
a Chinese guzheng, LeBaron begins double timing, strumming away as if she had a folksy
12-string guitar. Hassay counters with a loud heavy vibrato as the sound field subsides to
mere colored noises and offhanded plucks. Elsewhere, LeBaron works up a chorus of
multi-string strums as if she was an entire Mexican Mariachi band, saws across her string
as if she was powerfully attacking a jazz bass, and comps behind the saxist's note holding
and reverberated honks the way a hard bop pianist feeds the soloist.
Despite the many-stringed instrument's reputation,
LeBaron has no fear of diatonic discord on these 10 tunes and that's what makes the CD so
fascinating. |
Jazz Weekly Ken Waxman |
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The soft, warm tones of Anne
LeBaron's harp wash over the gritty spurts streaming from Gary Hassay's alto saxophone,
resulting in an open, liberated, and very challenging duet of improvised music. Hassay
puts a slight biting edge into his alto voice. He slings high-pitched spears of mercury
into the air, but he also massages his style by coaxing elastic, airy whispers from his
horn in caressed fashion. His output is met with the rising and ringing pebbles of purity
coming off LeBaron's harp, forming crystallized gems of tonality having both tenderness
and strength. As with a rain cloud, the united sound is released from the atmosphere and
falls gently to the ground. Hassay is very expressive on his instrument. He builds short
phrases into elongated runs that, while being totally free statements of spontaneity, have
a touch of lyricism in them. His thought pattern leans toward the introspective, giving
his music character and depth.
While
certainly not a traditional jazz instrument, the harp has extended potential in the hands
of LeBaron. She turns it into an improvising tool, plucking out aural jewels that mold
into the framework of Hassay's playing. LeBaron utilizes the full range of the instrument,
dropping the tonality down to its lowest point before climbing back to the summit of
high-register bell tones. She takes the harp out of the medieval era and brings it smartly
into the 21st century with adept use of electronics, by which she is able to shape and
augment the notes in extremely understated ways. LeBaron emphasizes, underscores, and
punctuates Hassay's improvisations and then builds her solos into intriguing flights of
subtle delight. She ekes out gentle droplets of dew that evolve into cascading streams of
instantly composed mystery.
Sonically, the harp and alto form a hesitant, pensive
union that grows into a perfect marriage of contrasting imagery. LeBaron etches the
carving with fluted rings of gold while Hassay explores uncharted terrain with probing
determination. This music is both spiritual and earthy, making it a work of substance to
be pondered but most of all enjoyed. |
One Final Note
Summer/Fall 2002 Frank
Rubolino |
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Blackwater Bridge improvisations take
place in the boundless territory that is located between a country named jazz and another
named contemporary classical music. Saxophonist Garry Hassay comes from jazz, Anne Le
Baron, harpist and renowned composer lives in the second country. Their gathering was
effective just because the composer of "Rite of The Black Sun" is also an
accomplished improviser and Hassay a musician fascinated with musical complexity that
happens when one dominates the art of creating music in the moment, ensuring that this
complexity does not live exclusively inside the world of musical writing, of which
collaborations with Andrew Cyrille, William Parker, Wadada Leo Smith, Butch Morris,
Borbetomagus or Fred Frith are eloquent examples.
The saxophone/harp formula (with LeBaron also playing percussion and
manipulating a sound sculpture by Harry Bertoia) is pretty uncommon and has opened new
ways to this recording: apart from exoticisms, one can experience the wonderful small
sounds Anne LeBaron makes out of her instrument and the intertwining of the snake-like
quality of Hassay´s saxophone, who is also the leader of Dr. Vincent Sakeeda´s Attack
Ensemble.
Heterodoxy in as far as tonality is concerned,
infidelity with respect to the dogmas that conduct the extended use of the musical
vocabularies, idealistically uncompromised, "with the authority of Pollock and the
subtlety of Dalí" as Scott Hreha writes in his notes, showing the strong influence
of plastic arts in this type of music. What we find here is one of the best records that
we can listen to these days in the area of musical improvisation. |
Rui Eduardo Paes translation
by
Eduardo Chagas |
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The concept of bringing noted new music
harpist Anne LeBaron together with avant-garde saxophonist Gary Hassay would seem to be an
attractive one. After all, the under-recorded and eclectic LeBaron has spanned the
spectrum of freely improvised music, from modern classical to jazz, while the little known
Hassay has distinguished himself as an innovative and creative performer.
Somehow, though, these ten duo improvisations are something of a
disappointment, as the two seem very much to be playing alongside rather than with one
another. There are few synergistic moments when the two are on the same wavelength,
although in fairness the collective expressive textures sometimes seduce with a surprising
resonance.
Hassay is the dominant voice, his lyrical alto riding
gently and occasionally erupting, while LeBaron reacts or goes her own way. The harpist
seduces a wealth of colors, a difficult task to be sure, resulting in subtle expressions
that purr and fade into an impressionistic landscape. She infuses the instrument with a
percussive element to complement its more traditional role. She eschews gimmickry, with
the strings filling the role of bass and piano or vibes, but mostly simply adding a unique
trajectory that spreads the sounds in several-directions.
There is a surprising peacefulness to the whole, as
Hassay focuses on slowly unwinding lines, often in mid-tempo, leading to a gradually
unfolding process that incorporates good use of silence and quiet. |
All Music Guide Steven
Loewy |
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There has to be a reason why so many of
the biggest names in free jazz and improvisation — including Ornette Coleman, Anthony
Braxton, Archie Shepp, Peter Brötzmann, Evan Parker, David S. Ware and many others —
are saxophonists. It’s probably partially a coincidence, but I’m guessing the
high number of famous saxophonists also has something to do with the saxophone itself:
because of its timbre and the effort required to even make a noise on it, the saxophone
commands attention as soon as it’s played. Saxophones (with the possible exception of
the baritone sax, which isn’t used in free jazz nearly as often as the alto or tenor)
don’t work very well as background instruments; they’re too flamboyant sounding.
So this CD, in which saxophonist Gary Hassay is accompanied only by the wispy glissandi of
Anne LeBaron’s harp, is a curious one. The album is ultimately a success, however,
due to the two players’ charming search for common ground.
LeBaron knows that without a rhythm section backing her, she’d
sound a bit ridiculous attacking her harp the way Alice Coltrane did, for example, on
1971’s Universal Consciousness. On the second half of the album, LeBaron steps out a
bit—she offers thudding, low-end stomps at the beginning of “Never Told
Tales,” and on “FRISSON,” she plays in startling start-stop blurts that
feel a bit like going over a speed bump too fast. But for the most part, LeBaron stays
pretty calm, plucking pensively at thin chords and scraping the ridges of her strings to
create eerie scratching sounds.
Hassay’s saxophone, then, is necessarily the
focal point, despite Hassay’s attempts to give LeBaron room to move. Hassay eschews
the innovations in extended technique developed by Braxton, Albert Ayler and others,
playing with a full, straightforward tone that wouldn’t raise eyebrows in a bop
combo. Like Fred Anderson and late-era John Coltrane, though, his approaches to harmony
and rhythm are far from conventional. Here, he sounds purposefully uncertain, playing
tentative, slurred phrases as he tries to fit into the tapestry woven by LeBaron.
Despite their valiant attempts, though, Hassay and
LeBaron’s instruments are too different for their work as a duo to really
gel—Blackwater Bridge shows two players looking for and never quite finding each
other. Hassay’s saxophone is a bit too heavy to sound as one with LeBaron’s
harp. Paradoxically, though, it succeeds almost because of that fact: Hassay and LeBaron
are each capable of sustaining interest on their own, and it’s strangely touching to
hear them straining to find common ground. And when the music does cohere, like in the
flying arpeggios at the beginning of “Memoire Involontaire,” it highlights the
difficulty of Hassay and LeBaron’s task — making their musical partnership work. |
Dusted Charlie Wilmouth |
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We've reviewed a couple of Gary's CD's
before (issues #45 and #37); this one with Anne's harp, sound sculpture & percussion
takes it to the next level. Gary's alto interacts most intimately with LeBaron's sound
paintings & sketches; the harp sounds against the saxophone make it an almost mystical
experience. They are both to be complimented on their sensitivity to the sounds - it takes
a great deal of skill and talent to play without playing over the other player in this
kind of improvisation.
The
"bridge" theme is clear, even without reading the liners... this isn't a
traditional pairing (harp/saxophone) for improvisation, you can hear (immediately) that
this duo are out to do more than splash sounds on the canvas... they clearly intend to
engage themselves and the listener in an adventure of exploration... go where others have
not been before. This is not "easy" listening... doubtful you'll hear it anytime
soon (probably never) on your "smooth jazz" station... but it is worth the
concentration.
One of the most intriguing parts (in the overall) of
"Blackwater" is that neither artist uses their instrument to blot out the
other's excursion into uncharted territory; they listen to each other, & to the
universe, if you will. If you have never listened to difficult music before, this IS the
album to start with... by the time you finish listening, you will have definitely
"crossed over" into new awareness (of the possibilities). This gets our MOST
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, as well as the "PICK" of this issue for "best
exploratory improvisation"! |
Improvijazzation Nation,
Issue #57
Dick Metcalf |
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