*** The Far East Side Band

URBAN ARCHAELOGY

(Victo)

This deliberately plotted music -- sounding more notated than improvised -- often moves in the geological time alluded to by the title: slowly. And the wealth of musical allusions is especially broad: Japanese court music (in its use of percussion and traditional bowed and plucked instruments, flutes, and Asian scales), contemporary Western classical music (in its use of spare chromaticism and microtones), and American jazz and blues (riff-based passages, and bass lines). Electric violinist/composer Jason Hwang has a sure sense of balance and proportion; he and his bandmates create their own integral urban landscape from their collective personal histories. Unlike other pan-stylistic experimenters, these musicians know their material. Especially rewarding is tuba player Joe Daley (familiar to jazz fans from his work with the likes of Charlie Haden and Sam Rivers), who here reveals new levels of lyricism and delicacy.

-- Jon Garelick

(Jason Hwang and the Far East Side Band with Joe Daley play the ICA "New Histories" series this Saturday, November 23, at 9:30 p.m. Call 266-5152.)