Cleaver - Untamed: Live at Scholes

April 8, 2021

Label: Out of Your Head Records, 2021

Personnel - Jonathan Goldberger: guitar; Mat Maneri: viola; Simon Jermyn: electric bass; Gerald Cleaver: drums.

This ‘Untamed’ performance, another one digged up and recovered by the Out of Your Head label, features a quartet of ripe, well-integrated avant-gardists that includes guitarist Jonathan Goldberger, violist Mat Maneri, bassist Simon Jermyn and drummer Gerald Cleaver.

The single 36-minute improvisation that appears on this record was played live at Scholes Street Studio in Brooklyn, at a time where the group was gigging regularly. Suffice to say that the musical cohesiveness usually found in close collaborators are pretty much on display here. The quartet’s instinctive behavior and freedom allow them to create a palette of inviting sounds that you’ve likely never heard before.

The smart, unconventional atmospheres are continually intriguing and nearly makes us jump out of the reality to embark on a surreal voyage with a lot to discover.

The infallible rhythmic support provided by Jermyn and Cleaver often falls into free-flowing grooves and cyclic pedals that regularly change physiognomies, ensuring that there’s plenty of freedom for Goldberger and Maneri to create and interact. The microtonal vulnerability of the viola together with the moody, mercurial guitar consistently push things into a state of suspension that, although never threatening, pricks our senses.

On occasion, you are offered electronic-like abstractions and constructive ruminations proper of the experimental avant-garde universe. Then the group opens a nice free-funk backdoor that leads into a gentle rubato contemplation tied up with off-kilter composed motifs. On other instances, you’ll be able to enjoy largely atmospheric folk sounds turned into pastoral elegies that feed into imaginary bucolic landscapes slightly blurred by a thin mist. The group concludes in a sort of Radiohead’s stylings through a circumscribed 4/4 harmonic routine.

The impression is strong, and I would definitely like to see this group come out with a studio recording sometime in the near future.

Gerald Cleaver & Violet Hour - Live at Firehouse 12

October 28, 2019

Label: Sunnyside Records, 2019

Personnel - JD Allen: tenor saxophone; Andrew Bishop: bass clarinet, soprano and tenor saxophones; Jeremy Pelt: trumpet; Ben Waltzer: piano; Chris Lightcap: double bass; Gerald Cleaver: drums.

This new outing from sought-after drummer/composer Gerald Cleaver is a bottomless well of energy and robustness. Five rhythmically-charged self-penned tunes (four of them retrieved from his 2007 album Detroit, which featured exactly the same group as here) were performed live at Firehouse 12. The spirited performance brainstormed a blend of novelty and familiarity that sparkles with gut-punch improvised moments. Moreover, this is a swinging record where his razor-sharp drumming skills solidifies a rhythm section that also includes pianist Ben Waltzer and bassist Chris Lightcap. They use their rhythm knowledge and charismatic accompaniment to support the melodic journeys of trumpeter Jeremy Pelt and saxophonists J.D. Allen and Andrew Bishop, a powerful frontline.

From the beginning, it becomes clear that Cleaver wants to avoid any type of dormancy, being interested in any groovy, swinging, and stimulating possibilities. Those energetic waves arise with the radiant swinging activity of “Pilgrim’s Progress”, whose theme’s melody has the force of an orchestra. By turns, Pelt and Waltzer see their fluid phrasing being disrupted by the bandleader’s interjections, in a surprising section of exchanges.

“The Silly One” is a bit less impetuous than its predecessor, but takes in elegant and sinuous collective moves complemented with striking improvisations from all three horn players. The backing presence of the bass clarinet is noticeable during the theme, and is Pelt who firstly goes impromptu with phrases equal parts articulated and expansive. He is followed by Bishop, who, in the meantime, had switched to soprano, and Allen, whose rich language leans on a vigorous post-bop sound that elicits offbeat reactions from his mates in the horn section and sets the pianist to venture with a touch of Latin in his supple accompaniment.

The title “Tale of Bricks” refers to the Book of Exodus and the music presents a mix of rigor and abandon while emanating a strong polyrhythmic feel in its introductory stage. The bass then lands in a glorious 11/8 groove over which the horn players blow with authority and gusto. In complete ecstasy, the outwardly expressive group swings in their own way, also creating tension through pedals and opportune punctuations.

This is also put on display on the closing number, “Detroit”, a tribute to the drummer’s hometown and another highly athletic exercise, instigated by a 7/8 tempo and a drum solo upfront. Intermittently swinging in four with that open posture that disarms, Cleaver and Lightcap know how to delineate a framework for their counterparts to fill. Bishop’s tenor solo is particularly attractive here by way of conclusion.

This is a true group effort where Cleaver shows his capacity of adaptation to any given situation. Hence, his kinetic fills and transitions are remodeled to better serve the Andrew Hill-tinged waltz “Carla’s Day”, a piece dedicated to his wife.

Cleaver and his Violet Hour group infuse a bracing freshness to these compositions, whose musical ardency is prone to increase pulse rates.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Pilgrim’s Progress ► 03 - Tale of Bricks ► 05 - Detroit

Larry Ochs / Nels Cline / Gerald Cleaver - What Is To Be Done

February 28, 2019

Label: Clean Feed, 2019

Personnel - Larry Ochs: saxophone; Nels Cline: electric guitar; Gerald Cleaver: drums.

If you want to figure out how music can be so ferocious and intimate at the same time, you should try What Is To Be Done, a compulsory trio record featuring saxophonist Larry Ochs, guitarist Nels Cline, and drummer Gerald Cleaver. The album brings a special motivation since it marks the 500th release of the Lisbon-based avant-jazz imprint Clean Feed.

The three musicians have been gigging together for quite some time but never had recorded before as a group. Saxophonist and guitarist were temporary partners in the Rova’s Electric Ascension bands, while Cleaver records with Cline for the first time, taking the opportunity to tighten the musical bond with Ochs after their duo album Songs of the Wild Cave (RogueArt, 2018).

They let the music breathe in the introductory section of the mercurial “Outcries Rousing”, where we hear elongated, electrified guitar chords sustaining a bashful saxophone. Moments later, Ochs wallows in a rasping rumpus with just Cleaver’s magnetic backbeat underneath. Even when Cline joins again, causing a darned detonation of acid-rock and proto-funk, the musicians find their own space, stretching their imagination to reinforce the collective’s integrity. A rare dark atmospheric passage seems to motivate Cline to subvert the sonic milieu. He dishes out twangy, spasmodically electro strokes synced with methodical percussive thumps. This segment evolves into an avalanche of sound created by continual noise guitar, fraught and resilient saxophone trajectories delineated with dark tones, and the catchy, athletic pulses from Cleaver. He is a fantastic rhythm sculptor, who also excels in the following structural block marked by prog-rock invention and electronica slipperiness. Running over 20 minutes, there’s a lot going on here, and the trio even stops by power-metal territories before Ochs detours toward East, throwing in sumptuous, Arabic-flavored phrases.

“A Pause, a Rose” is initially tinged with folk influences, affected by cascades of draggy electronic effects, and ultimately buoyed up by a lovely, fragmented trippy rhythm that produces glorious results with the guitar and soprano sax atop.

Like the opening track, “Shimmer Intend Spark Groove Defend” goes above 20 minutes, relying on the intense capacity of communication between the trio members, who work from many different angles. Exhibiting seamless transitions while pummeling with impressive force, this track includes relentless primitive rhythms, eerie drones, agonizing groans and spiraling phrases on the saxophone, and a variety of guitar textures comprising serene loopy vibes, loud spiky liberations, grungy tautness, and psych-rock stabs.

This is a tiny treasure of a disc, where you find no subterfuges and every section becomes a fresh discovery.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Outcries Rousing ► 03 - Shimmer Intend Spark Groove Defend