Sound thinking

Two new sides of Roscoe Mitchell

by Richard C. Walls

Reedman Roscoe Mitchell's new two-CD Sound Songs (Delmark) could be considered a career capper if it weren't so obvious that even as he approaches 60 his iconoclastic energy is nowhere near slowing down. Mitchell, who was a founding member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago in the mid '60s, has had a long solo career that began in 1966 with Sound (on Delmark and recently reissued), a classic side that set the tone for his further investigations. What made him and the entire Chicago avant-garde jazz scene distinct from the other intrepids of that time was the emphasis they put on rethinking one's approach to the basic elements of music -- not just rhythm and harmony but sound itself, the way it could be shaped and juxtaposed, its role as an expressive agent amid everlasting silence.

Mitchell's solo albums have been often intimidating and sometimes absurd. He's merciless where his listeners are concerned -- on one live recording he played the same rather annoying phrase over and over, 60 times, at a leisurely pace, until the audience began to express its frustration. He can go nuts in a studio as well, but an audience really seems to bring out the gauntlet thrower in him. So it's no surprise that the three set pieces on the 26-track Sound Songs, long tours-de-force of varying success, were recorded live.

The first, "Full Frontal Saxophone" (clocking in at just over 10 minutes), is the most ferocious, a soprano-sax solo driven by Mitchell's circular breathing, a technique for holding silence at bay and making it conspicuous by its absence. Mitchell begins fast and soon gets faster, using multiphonic and doppler effects to add dramatic heft to his already tart soprano sound. He then cranks things up another notch, reaching for high piercing notes as the lower tones continue to resonate like a cartoon yodel. The speed doubles before he slows down and latches on to a repeated, scorching phrase (hang on, we're halfway through). From that point on the piece takes the form of a sax duet, with one player favoring a distinctly melancholic and fuzzy tone, the other a light and bubbly approach. The song ends with one of Mitchell's patented held tones. It might just be a matter of microphone placement, but the applauding audience at the end sounds somewhat cowed (as well it should).

Monster piece number two, the alto-sax "Near and Far" (running a bit over 12 minutes), is a beast of a different color. It begins soft and reflective, though Mitchell's tendency to go from piano to forte in a second suggests barely suppressed aggression. Still, there's an abiding delicacy here and a certain caution, with Mitchell teasing out the notes as if he were wary of the disruptions they might cause to the primal silence. Even when he builds to more full-throated cries, it's in the context of persisting stillness and whispery grace notes. Unlike "Frontal," which aimed to punch out your lights, the cumulative effect here is elegiac, the piece ending with what sounds like a ghostly bugle call. The audience, unbruised, claps with more enthusiasm this time.

The last biggie, "Closer" (which lasts 14-1/2 minutes), is another soprano-sax number, and the least impressive. In its rhythms it's jazziest of the three, sounding like a marathon cadenza. It also turns out to be the biggest crowd pleaser, with shouts of "bravo" at the finish.

The rest of the 23 cuts here are relatively shortish studio creations, some having overdubbed sax, bells, chimes, whistles, bicycle horns, and miscellaneous percussion effects. On most of these, silence is an active participant. Their fragmented quality tends to make them less satisfying than the three exhaustive pieces, but occasionally you'll find cohesion and a richness of emotion -- which on the soprano-sax solo "They All Had New Clothes" is uninhibitedly forlorn. In such pieces Mitchell's music challenges, not because it makes you think but because it requires that you listen with an openness that encourages creative involvement. It's worth the effort.