By Sammy Stein
Han Earl Park, Pat Thomas, and Lara Jones need little introduction to fans of alluring, free music but for those not familiar with them, Park is an improvising musician who specializes in guitar and percussive music. He is a shapeshifter of a musician, a chameleon who transfers easily from beautiful passages to discordant ruminations. His music is joyful, energetic, and packed with rhythm patterns as changeable as they are engaging. He has performed with Lol Coxhill, Wadado Leao Smith, Mark Sanders, Evan Parker, and more.
Lara Jones is an experimental producer, DJ, saxophonist, keyboardist, and lyricist, who creates high-energy music and has worked with fellow artists in various ensembles and formats. Her music transcends genres, and Jones refuses to be boxed in by genres or gender definitions.
Pat Thomas began playing classical piano as a child but switched to jazz in his teenage years. Renowned for his intense, amorphic music, Thomas is an inspiration for improvising musicians. He was integral to the Black Top Project with Orphy Robinson and has performed with Hamid Drake, William Parker, John Butcher, and many others.
Park, Jones, and Thomas are Juno 3, and on Proxemics they demonstrate the achievements of a trio in live performance with intrinsic skills in listening, playing, and collaborating. The album was recorded live during the trio’s performance at London’s Cafe OTO for the EFG London Jazz Festival in November 2023.
The music is in two parts, ‘Derealization’ and ‘Proxemis’ respectively representing two sets performed at Oto. Each track, let alone six-track set, feels like an exploration into different ways guitar, sax, piano, and electronics can be melded in an improvised performance.
From the screeching eeriness created in ‘Derealization I’ where vaguely connected electronic harmonic runs give way on occasion to melodic, then non-so melodic interjections from the sax, there are themes, counter-themes and an exchange of ideas, often thrown down by Thomas for the others to reflect – albeit changed. This pattern is further explored in ‘Derealization II’, III, IV, with added melodic lines from the guitar in V and VI. Spot the opening of a melody from an old sixties track (Popcorn) in Realization II that sits alongside current, visceral electronic sounds for the briefest moment and then relish the simple melodies that interact with complex, guttural squawks, whistles, engine noises and vaguely harmonically linked lines from sax and guitar.
The ’Proxemics’ set is more intense and power-driven than the ‘Derealization’ set. ‘Proxemics I’ sees the energy building as quartets of chords chase across the background, while gentle guitar notes weave their way into and out of the sound. There is a set rhythm pattern for most of the track, under and over which the improvisers weave different, yet connected sounds. Proxemics II develops the exploration further, and Proxemics III introduces another dimension – rivulets of sound that fall from the keys, keynotes held by the sax, and the guitar deftly filling the gaps, like splashes from the pool. The quietude of the second third is dispelled as the instruments crash in to take the sounds up and loud.
The music is challenging in places–visceral with confronting rhythms and keys that merge – almost–before veering off in different directions, creating a sense of clashing ideas, yet a willingness also to (eventually) end up on the same musical path.
It is music for the open-minded and at times, the tonality is so jarring that it takes the listener somewhere else, only to be brought back to the present by a snippet of melody or harmonic progressions before another clash of sounds impacts the brain and the mist descends again.
These three musicians know what they are doing – the sound is integrated, yet audacious, swashbuckling yet provocative. This is improved music as it should be live and played well.
Park says of the recording, “During the mix, I came to realize this unapologetically unrefined music was probably unreleasable, but I also came to love it more for being delicate as a slab of granite.”
I think Park missed something, for hidden amongst the power, energy, and intensity, there is a delicate beauty that exists in all truly improvised music.
0 comments:
Post a Comment