Tim Berne
continued
Bloodcount
's forays into extended-form creative
jazz
with
Poisoned Minds
, the second installment of the band's live CD series recorded at
Instants Chavires
in Paris during September of 1994. There are only two pieces on the disc,
"The Other"
at 27 and a half minutes and
"What Are the Odds?"
at 41 and a half minutes; with running times like those,
Berne
was clearly not aiming for significant airplay on commercial radio. Instead,
is for serious listeners without attenuated attention spans, a somewhat radical concept in itself. Yet aside from the lengths of the pieces, many elements of the music are not particularly radical despite
's
avant-garde
rep -- melody, rhythm, and theme are all important to the saxophonist, and the innovation comes from the way he manipulates structure, fitting the pieces of the puzzle together in unpredictable ways.
begins with
on alto and
Chris Speed
on clarinet, stating a bluesy, soulful, and somewhat melancholy theme in rubato time; drummer
Jim Black
uses this opportunity to color the music with textural embellishments rather than drive it forward. Urgent propulsion is dominant in the piece's middle section, where tension is stretched to the breaking point as
Black
and bassist
Michael Formanek
jam out with a twisted rhythm and
and
Speed
, scarcely taking time to inhale, throw long purple-faced lines over the top. And yet
perhaps finds its greatest power in an uneasy conclusion that combines elements of
free jazz
chamber music
, subverting any expectations of a slam-bang finale.
starts
on alto accompanied only by
, and he's not in the mood for rumination at this point, possessed instead by uptempo, boppish energy. As his sax lines leap and twist, bits of a
-ish melody become discernible, and suddenly the whole band is off to the races together on a highly charged theme that catapults forward even through abrupt, oddly timed stops and starts. Then
bursts through with a hot tenor solo over churning, chunky, and propulsive accompaniment from
,
Formanek
, and guitarist
Marc Ducret
. The groove pulls completely apart in a cacophonous outburst from all the bandmembers, but
somehow find their way back to the theme and then drag the rhythm section back in line with them. An abrupt downward shift in dynamics leads to a beautifully subdued ensemble passage, and then
is soon displaying his solo chops. From here on, unpredictability comes not in the piece's linear form -- which is in fact leading to a slam-bang finish -- but rather in the way
uses intra-band tension. In three separate waves, solo or group episodes informed by
free improvisation
are pitted against steadily rising backdrops of funky, twisted riffs that only
could write. Rhythmically off-kilter and yet with grooves that
can drive a truck through,
's engaging riffs ultimately win the struggle, with so much energy expended that the listener is left -- happily -- exhausted. [
Winter & Winter
reissued all three of the
discs first issued on the now defunct
JMT
label.] ~ Dave Lynch