Max Koch - Reexamining Roots

 By Paul Acquaro

Max Koch - Ten Bulls (Jazzwerkstatt, 2023)

The opening moments of guitarist Max Koch's 2023 debut Ten Bulls is pure listening pleasure. There is a slight insistence to Stephan Deller's acoustic bass and Bill Elgart lithe drumming. For just a moment, I get the feeling the same feeling that comes every time I listen to the opening moments of Gateway's first album, essentially, a gut feeling that this is going to be good.

And it has been. Ten Bulls has been near the top of my playlist since it first landed in my hands late last year. Too long really without mention if it, if I do say so myself. Between then and now, I caught Koch in concert at the end of the year, and have had the chance to hear him in some different contexts other than this great collection of slightly askew self-penned tunes that invoke ghosts of jazz past and eagerly re-invent them.

 

After the first glistening moments of the opener, 'Sidetrack,' Max Arsava's piano playing opens up the sonic curtains, letting in some light and color. It stays cool, building slightly, carefully, arpeggiated lines from the keyboard adding relief - then comes Max Hirth's tenor sax and Koch with a tandem line, it is a quick detail, but one which opens the playing space even more. The legato melodic lines mix with harmonic guitar swirls, the mood has become more 'spiritual' like and Hirth begins spinning an arcing solo riddled with yearning. The intensity has coalesced and the space is aglow. It's more than half-way into the track that Koch comes to the fore. He plays a single note lines with an abrupt attack, using an approach to guitar that is both melodic and textural. The song soon spins into a chaotic whirl before returning back to a fractalized piano solo. As the group convenes for the outro, it suddenly becomes apparent that some of the inspiration for the piece likely derives from Ornette Coleman's 'Lonely Woman.' 

 

The follow-up, 'Sneezes in a Row', begins with a pointillist melody that Koch delivers with his clean toned electric guitar. His approach straddles a line between melodic and entropic, the syncopated lines almost crumbling into atonality, but never quite. Never dominating, it fits the music perfectly, providing accompaniment or playing solo. The following 'Fifteen Minutes of Fame' begins with Elgart's unaccompanied drums. The elder statesman in the group - these other guys are young - brings a reservedness to the percussion that allows the music to unfold unhurriedly. This is the most experimental of the music, free but controlled, concentrating say the exuberance of Hirth's circular breathing solo.

 

The final two tracks do not lose any of the momentum of the recording. The title track has a see-sawing melody that has a bit of Prime-Time feel to it. The 'harmolodic' aspect can be felt in the shifting time of the piano and drums, which then gives way to 'time' - the bass begins walking and the sax and piano solos that follow are somewhat grounded in tradition before letting it go towards the end. The final track is in fact by Ornette, a rendition of the track 'W.R.U.' off of Ornette! from 1962. A quick side-by-side reveals a reverent reading of the initial head, although the trumpet/sax duo of the original is actually a bit smoothed by the guitar/sax/piano approach here. It unfolds with one eye towards the source, and the other firmly fixed on the future. A fitting end to say the least.

Landgraf/Lefeber/Koch - Restless Response (Unit Records, 2024)

Folk jazz has a long tradition in the US, going back to, for example, Jimmy Giuffre with 'The Train and the River' in 1957 or Bill Smith's Folk Jazz recording in '59. These are just two examples of where folk themes were incorporated and absorbed into of-the-time jazz. In the late 1970s, Eugene Chadbourne took a de/re-constructionist approach to country music, which kind of links the following leap in time and space that we are about to make. On Restless Response, American folk music has seemingly captured the interest of three innovative, young musicians out of Cologne, Germany. They, however, have no interest in smoothing over and synthesizing the tonalities of folk with jazz, or even directly deconstructing it and reassembling it anew, rather they are amplify its dissonances and bring experimental techniques to this timeless music. It isn't really clear that the word jazz as a style applies here, but let us keep going anyway.

 

On first listen, one may wonder how these thee would have gotten here musically. Maybe through the likes of John Fahey? Surely at some point curious guitarists like Max Koch or Steve Landgraf would explore the "American primitivist" guitarist, which could lead to other sources and in this time where everything available, all the time, it's easy to follow these connections. Luckily, they along with vocalist, violinist and electronicist Sophia Lefeber, did. Together, the three explore with a certain glee these old songs and sounds, finding inspiration within their jagged and dusty corners. 

 

'Cuyahoga Sanctuary' begins with tactile chaos - rubbing of violin strings, hard plucking on a banjo, it is a harsh and dissonant way to kick off an album. About half way though the four and a half minute piece the mood changes - a slow melody picks up, seemingly wrung out of the violin as a banjo plays clunky chords. There is a certain charm to the shamble of sounds, this is pretty much as good as avant-garde Appalachian folk gets. Then comes the 'Old Woman and Pig' - an old folk song full of grief and loss -  sung by convincingly by Lefeber and eventually leading to a claw-hammer banjo and fiddle freak out. The follow up is Roscoe Holcombs' 'Rock Island Prison,' which continues the exploration of folk tune forms but is now infused with distorted electric guitar done. 'Cowboy Love Song' is a cute number that is given a pretty straight forward treatment, save for a little phlegm, and a wonderfully obtuse set of solos. There is plenty more to hear, in fact things get pretty weird with the slurry tune 'Intoxicated Rat' and a bit morbid with a version of the 'The Great Titanic' from 1915, sporting the lyrics:

Oh it was sad when that great ship went down.

Their were husbands and their wives,

Little children lost their lives.

It was sad when that great ship went down.

It's not all fun and games though, for example, the trio's version of the Appalachian tune "O Death', which had a rediscovery in the soundtrack for Coen Brother's "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" is given a very sincere reading here, the appreciation ringing out clearly.