When you think of cities that have a thriving jazz scene, the Twin Cities of Minneapolis & St. Paul are usually not on the short list. Let me tell you as an Angeleno-this town smokes and stomps LA! They’ve got not only some cooking clubs like the Dakota (they had Pat Metheny, Marcus Miller, Chick Corea, Gary Burton, John Scofield and John Mayall JUST IN SEPTEMBER!!!), but they’ve got some tasty restaurants like Brasa and Punch to whet your palate. Besides all that, the adventurous jazz label Innova Records is set up in the town of Target, Best Buy, General Mills and 3M, and they’ve just released three discs that are as wide open as the Boundary Waters.
Cornelius Dufallo plays the violin and electronics on this creative and imaginative session that covers material composed by the likes of John Luther Adams, Huang Ruo and Vijay Iyer. The mixing and melding of string overdubs and computer generated sounds veers from solo arias to highly textured stringed “orchestras.” At times the music is as eerie as a suspenseful slash thriller, and other times as pastoral as an afternoon picnic. A soundtrack feel pervades this music that goes from ambient to goose pimple producing.
Clarinetist/composer David Keberle releases material that has been recorded between for the last 12 or so years, with modern classical sounds mixing with post modern jazz. The ensembles range from duos of tenor voice and piano (“Three Songs on the Poetry of Yeats”) to flute choirs, strings sections and percussion. Some of the music, as on “Soundings II”) is hauntingly ethereal and gorgeous, while other moments can be a jarring splash of icy water in your face. The melding of sounds and moods requires concentration, and the poetry recited by Robert Franenberry is a bit of an acquired taste if your only exposure to vocals is Joe Williams.
Speaking of vocalists, tenorist Paul Sperry fronts a pair of orchestras on music featuring two composers: Robert Beaser and William Bolcom. I lived in Italy for a year and listen to a lot of Italian opera, and it STILL took me until the third “motet” for me to realize that this guy was singing in Italian. The style is ultra modern classical, and is going to take more than 3 listenings to get used to it. The English compositions by Bolcom are just as angular, displaying some impressive chops and technique, but appealing more to the head than the heart.