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TWO
ALTER GUITAR EGOS FOR ONE TROMBONIST
For as long
as I’ve known Marty Cook - which goes back to the middle of
the eighties - he has been an ardent admirer of Ornette Coleman,
a musician who seldom worked with a keyboard instrument. You may
ask, what’s better than the sound of a good piano? Nothing
- it is true. But a piano also nails down the sound of the ensemble,
pins it to the wall - and not just the sound!
The idea of substituting a piano with a guitar is not new, yet there
are advantages for the sort of progressive music Cook wishes to
play. Coleman chose guitarists when he formed his band Prime Time,
and it made sense within his musical conception. Modern guitar playing
unites the colors and structures of chords with the open-ended freedom
of running melodic lines, thus doing away with the restrictive elements
of blocks of chords.
This use of the guitar instead of piano works in the same way for
Cook. In my production ‘Phases of the Moon’ (Tutu CD 888160),
which was recorded back in 1993, Marty worked with guitarist Bill
Bickford. The results must have encouraged Cook to want to work
more in this format, only this time with only one horn, his trombone,
and two guitars. Surprisingly enough, he found two high-caliber
guitarists in Munich, Geoff Goodman and Gunnar Geisse, but what
is even more amazing about both of them, is how such different styles
and musical characters work together in such a creative way.
The one, Geoff Goodman, is an American with eclectic roots ranging
from Country & Blues, jazz, pop, and Mid-Eastern music that
flows from the soft and melodic to the harsh sounds of avant-heavy
metal. Commenting on guitarists in general, sound engineer Mike
Müller once appropriately called Goodman the ‘Last of
the Space Cowboys’. The other, Gunnar Geisse has more European
roots - he can be brittle and shrill, his approach more unconventional,
more “off the wall”, emphasizing ‘moments of Monk’
in his own way. Each represents a different aspect of Cook’s
imaginary musical world. They are, so to speak, two alter egos for
one person, and both worlds are interlocked in some incredible fashion.
As soloist on the trombone, the band-leader has more free space
for improvisation than he ever had before.
At first, Marty worked with these two guitars purely as a trio,
and in my judgement, it was the first time that Marty Cook had the
chance to pull out his music - like a conjuror from a magic hat
- in all its perfected form and content. The first time I heard
this line-up was back in 1995 at the Jazzclub Unterfahrt and because
as a producer I’m always looking for - or better said - listening
for different, unusual sounds, I was immediately fascinated by this
line-up’s concept. Likewise, on this album, there is a new
inner geometry in Cook’s music that I’ve never heard before.
The cross-references up and down the line of jazz tradition play
a bigger role in here than in his former recordings. This becomes
evident as he turns to urban Blues forms à la Monk, along
with the freer forms of Jazz, in which elements of avant-garde classical
music can so easily be integrated. However, in doing this, it is
less about the harmonic structures here - they retreat into the
background - than about shaping forms out of which unbounded possibilities
for improvisation spontaneously occur - apparently of their own
accord. For various reasons it took a long time to produce this
group, but finally the dart - my fourth album with Cookin’
jazz - hit the target. Bulls-eye!
For the recording
session, the phenomenal bassist Edwin Schuller was fetched from
New York. Schuller has been on all of Cook’s albums since 1987.
Peter Perfido is one of Marty’s favorite drummers in Europe.
He is an outstanding player with enormous stylistic versatility.
Both Peter Perfido and Ed Schuller have worked together with Romanian
tenor saxophonist Nicolas Simion (check out Viaggio Imaginario,
Tutu CD 888192). With this outstanding rhythm team propelling them
on their way, Cook and his two guitars could travel any path they
wished.
In the jazz tradition, Marty Cook constructs a musical foundation
through an eclectic process which not only sums up his own experiences
as a musician with roots in the turbulently creative New York jazz
scene of the sixties, but discovers ever new and astonishing territories.
These discoveries test the creative potential of all of his sidemen,
and they stand up to that test.
The name Fractal
Gumbo may be seen as a metaphor for a musical dish to set before
a king. The ingredients may at first seem impossible to combine
tastefully, so it is all the more surprising that they work together
so well; they create thrilling, spicy moments you’d have hardly
considered possible. A fine potpourri of allusions is all part of
the program. The music of Fractal Gumbo is not like Ornette’s
or Monk’s, or like anybody else’s music… in a wonderful
way, it expresses the original voice of the one and only –
Marty Cook!
Peter Wiessmueller
Vouno, September 2001
Marty
Cook Homepage
Fractal Gumbo Homepage
Rondo
about 'Fractal Gumbo'
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