Label: Astral Spirits Records / Instigation Records, 2022

Personnel - Joe McPhee: tenor saxophone, pocket trumpet; Fred Lonberg-Holm: cello; Michael Zerang: percussion.

Recorded at the New Orleans Jazz Museum during the 2018 Instigation Festival, The Art of Flight is Survival Unit III’s tip of the hat to the late drummer Alvin Fielder, who was a charter member of the AACM and Black Arts Music Society. This powerhouse triangular outfit, which first recorded in 2006 (album Don’t Postpone Joy), is fronted by multireedist Joe McPhee and features the Chicagoan rhythm section of cellist Fredrick Lonberg-Holm and drummer Michael Zerang.

The new album comprises five parts, the first of which clocks in at over 13 minutes, slowly building momentum with an impeccable sense of direction. It kicks off with crying cello whines and the incisive pocket trumpet of McPhee, who later switches to tenor sax in order to offer moments of true, sober melody over the brushed patterns of Zerang. The airy tones become denser at a later stage as the trio goes off into improvisational wilds.

“Part 2” places a powerful motif at the center, and the trio sets it ablaze while rubbing around its edges. Likewise, the riff-based “Part 5” has everyone embracing a particular rhythmic figure, remaining in a state of persuasive, asynchronous communication. Sculpted with free jazz mechanisms that include ferocious attacks and indomitable energy, this piece becomes more fervent with the time.

“Part 3” is soulful yet intensely adventurous, with a tenor intro that oozes spiritual and folk meaning. The emotions are at the edge when McPhee growls into the horn, searching for a haunting effect, and then Lonberg-Holm drives his cello with unremitting uniformity in texture. This is all paved with tension-filled percussion, and, subsequently, there’s a more ambiguous passage with cello scrapes and metallic sounds. This is the kind of trio that dives into the music with no fear of the outcome. Their exploration is innate as they stretch into sonic arenas of their own choosing.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Part 1 ► 03 - Part 3 ► 05 - Part 5

Label: ESP-Disk, 2021

Personnel - Michael Bisio: acoustic bass; Kirk Knuffke: cornet; Fred Lonberg-Holm: cello, electronics.

Bassist Michael Bisio, cornetist Kirk Knuffke and cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm anchor a trio project that lives from improvisation. The Art Spirit, now out on the ESP-Disk label, is the follow up to Requiem For A New York Slice (Iluso Records, 2019). The music was inspired by the American painter Robert Henri, one of the organizers of a landmark show called ‘The Eight’, and consists of three Bisio compositions and five collective improvisations.

Besides leading their own groups, the members of this trio have been essential to many other groups and projects. The New York bassist has been working alongside Joe McPhee, Matthew Shipp and Ivo Perelman; the Colorado-born cornetist enriches the sound of Michael Formanek’s Ensemble Kolossus, Matt Wilson Quartet and, more recently, James Brandon Lewis’ Red Lily Quintet; while the Chicagoan cellist worked with Peter Brötzmann, Steve Swell and the amazing avant-jazz unit Vandermark 5.

“Not a Souvenir of Yesterday”, the opening track and first improvisation to appear on the album, has weighty bass lines meshing with incisive cello threads, creating a perfectly audible convolution that swings while letting the cornetist loose on it.

Other improvised phenomenons that caught my ear are “Both Keys Belong to You” and “Like Your Work As Much As”. On the former, the trio sculpts and paints with impressionistic ostinatos, free rambles and buzzing drones, with the ending sounding much like a written theme statement in which Knuffke has the word. The latter tune, on the other hand, plunges straight into a swinging flow that inspires not only Knuffke - who boasts exact phrasing, snappy articulations and extended technique - but also a fantastic integration of electronics devised by Lonberg-Holm.

Bisio’s compositions encompass several moods, and if “R.henri” combines bowed strings and cornet cries to express a flow of mournful vulnerability, then “Orange Moon Yellow Field” gives the impression of amorphousness through an offbeat interlocking of the instruments. “Things Hum” presents a pizzicato dance of bass and cello for a start, and then, on a constant drive, finds space for a chamber section twisted by bowed strings and muted cornet.

Some invocations are catchier than others, but in this bubbling modern creative stew there’s a lot of abstraction and clarification as well as tension and release to keep you tuned.

Favorite Tracks:
01- Not a Souvenir of Yesterday ► 06 - Things Hum ► 07 - Like Your Work As Much As