Snakeoil
(ECM 277 8654)

The American saxophonist and composer remains one of the most searching and creative of jazz musicians. Over the years he has worked in such a wide and dramatically different range of bands that it can be difficult to sum up what makes his music identifiably his outside of his urgent alto saxophone sound.

This band doesn’t make it any easier, for it is yet another new one. This time it’s an acoustic bass-less quartet of Oscar Noriega on clarinet and bass clarinet, Matt Mitchell on piano and Ches Smith on drums and percussion. And Snakeoil is his first as a leader on ECM.

The long opener, Simple City, has a loping, gradually unfurling quality to it, starting with piano and expanding and developing almost as a classical suite might, with a quiet  interlude for clarinet and piano after the full band has built up the rhythmic drive and then dissipated.

Tim Berne

In a way, this is how we identify Berne’s work: an intriguing mix of composed and improvised elements, often hard to distinguish, but held together by his distinctive use of a very personal way with a long melodic line and simple but distinctive harmonies. It makes him a loyal follower of Julius Hemphill, Henry Threadgill and composers of that ilk, while making the language and style his own.

I suspect there is more composed music here than on some other Berne discs, and it is clear that the band has played together a lot to achieve this kind of complex interaction and then make it all sound loose enough to pass for spontaneous creation, even though it probably isn’t.

Try Scanners, which finds us in relatively familiar Berne territory with clarinet, piano and drum steadily building the drive and intensity of a short riff while Berne screams and squalls above it.

Spare Parts builds from a darkly atmospheric intro with reed harmonies over piano chords and tom-tom rumblings. The clarinet/sax/piano line has a Stravinsky feel to its harmonies.

Right through the album there are often just two of the instruments playing, or three, as Berne uses all the combo variations at his disposal. It’s also very much a symmetrical quartet of equal parts.

Tim Berne has a loyal but rather cult followiing, and this disc, possibly one of his most accessible together with the exposure that having it released on ECM brings, is likely to greatly expand it and bring him the much wider recognition he deserves.

It’s really marvellous stuff from one of the most important stayers from the early ’90s downtown New York scene.

This band is now touring and plays two nights at The Vortex In London on 14 and 15 March. For more information, go here.

There is a brief interview with Tim Berne by Alex Roth on the LondonJazz blog. Look here.