H a r r i s E i s e n s t a d t
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re: Quintet at Cornelia st Cafe 5/7/08
Harris Eisenstadt is a drummer with an experimental edge, as he demonstrates most vividly in this working band with the trumpeter Nate Wooley, the saxophonist Matt Bauder, the vibraphonist Chris Dingman and the bassist Chris Lightcap.
re: Quintet at Cornelia st Cafe 5/7/08
Toronto-born avant-jazz percussionist Harris Eisenstadt has stocked his quintet with outstanding young players: trumpeter Nate Wooley, saxist Matt Bauder, vibist Chris Dingman and bassist Eivind Opsvik.
re: The All Seeing Eye + Octets
Drummer Harris Eisenstadt's The All Seeing Eye + Octets broaches the subject of recomposition, which has lately become a genre into itself. The Original All Seeing Eye, from 1965, might be the least celebrated of Wayne Shorter's Blue Note albums, but it was also his most ambitious gambit as a composer, and the work most in touch with that era's mystically inclined avante-garde—his La Creation du Monde, ending with an ominous acknowledgment to Mephistopheles by flugelhornist Alan Shorter, the saxophonist's more daredevil brother. Eisenstadt reconceives the album's five heads as chamber works: without Shorter and Freddie Hubbard, this reinterpretation lacks the original's soloistic firepower, but makes up for it with dark, bruising interplay between Daniel Rosenboom's trumpet and three low reeds. If the presence of a bassoon inevitably recalls La Sacre du Printemps, the combination of bass clarinet, Chris Dingman's vibes, and Eisenstadt's drums reinforces this music's Blue Note origins, implicitly linking to Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch. And, in at least one instance, Eisenstadt comes closer to realizing Shorter's intentions than Shorter himself did: Given his proud musicianship, there was no way Shorter could bring himself to depict "Chaos," but Eisenstadt can. The original proceeded from a belief in what is now called "intelligent design," and could itself be taken by a believer as evidence of it. Eisenstadt treats it as an evolutionary work-in-progress, and it says something about his own promise as a composer that the pair of tumbling, three-part octets that complete this CD don't come as a letdown.
- Francis Davis
re: Gewel at 295 Apr5/08
In his Gewel project, drummer-composer Harris Eisenstadt mixes his avant-jazz expertise with an extensive knowledge of funky, intricate African music. Fortunately his bandmates—saxist Josh Sinton, plus brassmen Taylor Ho Bynum, Nate Wooley and Mark Taylor—can shift convincingly between boisterous and abstract modes.
- TONY Jazz staff
from culturecatch.com/music/best-jazz-2007
re: The All Seeing Eye
Half a tribute to a classic Wayne Shorter album, half a condensation of two Eisenstadt large-ensemble suites, this is a Janus-like disc that looks backwards and forwards. The decision to change the instrumentation on the Shorter-penned tracks (four by Wayne, one by Alan) from trumpet/trombone/alto sax/tenor sax/piano/bass/drums to trumpet/two clarinets (doubling bass clarinets)/bassoon/vibes/bass/drums not only avoids direct comparisons to Wayne’s solos, it gives the pieces an attractive chamber-music quality with interesting timbres, though without sacrificing spontaneity. Carla Bley’s arrangements for Gary Burton come to mind, both because of Chris Dingman on vibraphone and because of the pointillist arrangements. The chamber-music feeling is even stronger on Eisenstadt’s compositions, but again there remains plenty of jazz feeling.
- Steve Holtje
from Exclaim
re: The Convergence Quartet
Live in Oxford is the work of four young players – cornettist Taylor Ho Bynum, pianist Alex Hawkins, bassist Dom Lash and Toronto’s own Harris Eisenstadt on the drums – who are exploring what the jazz tradition might still mean, a century after the music’s birth. Many players tackle this dilemma by translating their sense of information-overload and belatedness into pastiche and hyper-collage; the Convergence Quartet, though, keep their music lean and purposeful, as if to boil overfamiliar styles down to their core principles and energies. Despite the group’s small size and penchant for free improvisation, there’s a surprisingly Ellingtonian flavour here, a similar sense of the enormous resources of colour and personality available within the ensemble; certainly there’s no mistaking the kinship between Bynum’s growls and droll lyricism and the jazz surrealism of Rex Stewart and Tricky Sam Nanton. Not an easy album to get a grip on, by any means, but it poses more questions about the future of jazz (and finds more viable answers) than many flashier releases from the past year.
- Nate Dorward
re: Nate Wooley Quartet and Canada Day
Mr. Wooley, a trumpeter, and Mr. Eisenstadt, a drummer, take turns appearing in each other’s experimentally inclined bands. Both favor the sound of vibraphonists; Matt Moran plays in Mr. Wooley’s quartet at 9 p.m., and Chris Dingman appears in Mr. Eisenstadt’s quintet at 10 p.m.
- Nate Chinen
re: Nate Wooley Trio
This left-leaning series begins with a trio led by the trumpeter Nate Wooley, with the bassist Reuben Radding and the drummer Harris Eisenstadt.
- Nate Chinen
re: The Convergence Quartet
Recorded live at the Jacqueline du Pré Music Room last year at the end of a national tour by the Convergence Quartet, this album is a perfect example of the richly varied nature of free improvisation. Featuring two players of international standing, American trumpeter Taylor Ho Bynum and Canadian drummer Harris Eisenstadt, plus the fast-rising talents of two young local players, Alexander Hawkins on piano and Dominic Lash on bass, this concert contains the variety of skills and approaches that makes jazz taken into the unchartered country of musical freedom so exciting and unpredictable. The fossilisation of our responses to music including jazz constantly stultifies our response to new ideas, so this album which has the immediacy of a live event is a welcome addition to the growing discography from musicians who wish to respond artistically to the more radical nature of the cultural landscape.
With the shifting tonal quality of Ho Bynum's spare lines arching over the rush and tremble of Eisenstadt's drumming, while Lash boosts and counters on bass and Hawkins introduces floods of highly articulated notes, the music on this album (FMR CD223-0307) is constantly curving and developing in a way that earlier free jazz often failed to do. From moments of almost silence, with Lash teasing the edges of his bass or Bynum lifting single notes into the wonderful acoustic of the JDP, through to full-on duos between Hawkins and Eisenstadt, this is an album full of lightning responses from all the players and moments of magical innovation. Though inevitably best experienced in the moment, this recording perfectly captures the freshness of the event.
- Paul Medley
re: Creative Music Tuesdays
Barry Altschul Trio +
Harris Eisenstadt Canada Day Quintet
Percussionist Harris Eisenstadt’s Creative Music Tuesdays at Spike Hill is off to a great start, presenting a wide array of experimental luminaries. Tonight’s edition is all about the drums, with Eisenstadt’s own group, as well as a trio led by the brilliant veteran Barry Altschul, who worked with just about every progressive-jazz bandleader worth hearing in the ’70s.
- TONY jazz staff
re: Creative Music Tuesdays
It may not last much longer, but for a few months, the Williamsburg bar Spike Hill and drummer Harris
Eisenstadt, curator of Creative Music Tuesdays there, have presented music almost too hip for the B61 crowd...
- Andrey Henkin, All About Jazz NY
re: The Convergence Quartet
The Convergence Quartet consists of two North Americans (cornet and flugelhornist Taylor Ho Bynum and drummer Harris Eisenstadt) and two Brits (Alexander Hawkins on piano and small instruments and bassist Dominic Lash). The musicians seem to be taking the band name seriously, as the music is clearly informed by the intersections of methodologies; even though the pieces are shaped by free improvisation, each of the five tracks credits a single composer.
The first piece, Bynum’s “Miscellaneous,” nicely recapitulates the textural history of jazz, whether it wants to or not, beginning with the cornetist’s fine averaging of Bubber Miley and Tricky Sam Nanton with the big beat, Sonny Greer-style orchestral drumming of Eisenstadt. Before the theme is recapitulated, Hawkins’ solo has some of the animation of Cecil Taylor: it’s a short and circular history. Lash’s “Goad” is then the sonic inverse, initially a collection of wisps and stutters that maintains that level until a piano solo creates strong linear continuity and animation, triggering a rhythmic figure from the cornet that might be a composed bridge to another passage of improvisation, dynamic sostenuto piano scurry leading to a final angular trumpet part consisting of sturdy and pointed blasts. A bass solo introduces Eisenstadt’s “Convergence,” gradually gaining in rhythmic specificity to introduce something that Henry Mancini would recognize as a theme, with bass and drums working in close tandem. While Hawkins gradually takes it out with Tippett-ing flurries, segments might be described as “in the pocket,” by those who actually use that phrase. There’s a wonderful moment here in which Bynum plays call and response with himself at the same time that he’s interacting closely with Eisenstadt. Hawkins’ “Goodbye, Sir” is more obscure in its underpinnings, beginning with sound-play solos from Bynum and Eisenstadt before thematic materials emerge with a group passage that leads to free (jazz) improvisation that’s a highlight of the performance. The final and brief Bynum piece, “mm(pf),” reasserts a pattern here, strong tonal agreement arising out of apparently random activity.
What this music means in relationship to how it’s assembled will be determined in each individual listening, but its ambiguities of construction form a particular invitation to inquire into the time and manner of its making. One of its characteristic gestures is a movement from improvisation to pre-structured material, thus structuring material in advance of our hearing, changing our temporal relationship to its construction while suggesting a fundamental reassertion of composition within improvised music. It also thematizes the idea of free improvisation as a prelude to something else that has already conditioned it, turning improvisation into something the music is about rather than a method of making it. The liner essay by Simon H. Fell is a useful inquiry into the issues posed by this music. For anyone interested in pursuing this work, Fell’s note is also available as a PDF file on the record company site: www.fmr-records.com.
-Stuart Broomer
re: The All Seeing Eye + Octets
Re-recording a classic Post-War Jazz album in its entirety is an ambitious move, especially from someone as young as Eisenstadt (b. 1975). Re-arranging the album for different instrumentation… would be achievement enough, but Eisenstadt doesn’t stop there. The combination of "The All Seeing Eye"’s ominous harmonies and driving rhythms make a poignant contrast with Eisenstadt’s own long-form pieces. An intricate collision of lyrical harmonies and polyphonic textures, Eisenstadt’s writing is both challenging and accessible… a creative re-imagination instead of a slavish re-creation. The streamlined octet gives a stunning reading to these highly engaging original compositions. The ensemble expertly avoids conventional clichés. Reaching beyond typical notions of free jazz reverie, (the album) ends with one of the most uplifting melodies of recent memory, and culminates in a rousing, buoyant Kwela-inspired groove that sings with a straightforwardness that defies musical boundaries. A stunning combination of the past and the future, “The All Seeing Eye + Octets” is a telling document from a rising artist.
- Troy Collins
Touching Extremes
re: The Convergence Quartet
Taylor Ho Bynum (cornet, flugelhorn), Harris Eisenstadt (drums), Alexander Hawkins (piano, small instruments) and Dominic Lash (double bass) are the members of The Convergence Quartet, a not-too-friendly unit whose means of expression is a mixture of linearity and complexity applied in equal doses over the course of five tracks, each one curiously penned by a lone component but not revelatory of its composer’s primary instrument’s influence. The large part of the album sounds like pure improvisation, though, with just a modicum of pretty minimal themes to which the players return after the most difficult unpremeditated sections. A Mark Isham-like trumpet draws horizontal lines of calmness amidst Cecil Taylor-ish spurts in “Convergence”, only to start babbling and clamouring while riding a muscular vamp by Lash, while Eisenstadt, the author of this particular piece, accompanies and underlines with masterful sensitiveness, at times coming to the front in the mix with rare outbursts. Hawkins’ “Goodbye, Sir” is very variegated, fractured in a way, lots of quasi-silences interrupted either by complex interplay or introvert explorations by a single instrument; think “XX-Century dissonant marching band, power switched alternatively on and off”, with additional pinches of solo follies to render the music even more unbalanced. The live recording captures the group as a resonating, often booming whole, the instruments exploiting the natural reverberation of Oxford’s Jacqueline Du Pré Music Building to represent a collective picture where details are to be intuited and guessed rather than individuated. The dynamic contrasts always remain within the borders of acceptability also for less expert ears, transforming the experience in an exercise in attentive listening that needs concentration to give out its secrets.
- Massimo Ricci
from ejazznews.com
re: Convergence Quartet
Recorded at a music building in Oxford, England., this international cast of highly-regarded improvisers use the building’s wonderful acoustics as a vantage point here. Therefore, it’s an organic program that resonates with the musicians’ multifaceted mode of attack. More importantly the program is a study in contrasts. Whether it’s Alexander Hawkins’ pumping or gingerly executed voicings atop asymmetrical pulses or the band’s minimalist like dialogues, this album truly is a convergence of musical ideas.
Featuring five semi-structured pieces that enable the instrumentalists quite a bit of room for expression and expansion, there are parts where Hawkins phrasings seemingly roll off Harris Eisenstadt’s polyrhythmic pulses. Trumpeter Taylor Ho Bynum frequently revs it up while also working within budding themes, firmed-up by bassist Dominic Lash. Another component of the artists’ musical architecture pertains to their integration of tangible themes into the improvisational element. And at times, the dialogues elicit thoughts of people scurrying around a room, where the band engages in cat and mouse exchanges. On “Goodbye, Sir,” they purvey a sense of loneliness and isolation but eventually up the ante with heated, interweaving dialogues.
Overall, this is a convincingly solid engagement that highlights the band’s morphing of ambience, finesse, power and intricately devised subtleties. It’s all executed with a sense of purposeful exploration. An excellent outing, indeed…
- Glenn Astarita
Touching Extremes
re: The All Seeing Eye + Octets
Composer and drummer Harris Eisenstadt has been recently featured in many amongst the most satisfying jazz-oriented projects on the U.S scene, and this record confirms that his young age - he was born in 1975 - belies his flourishing maturity as a composer and arranger. One of Eisenstadt's main influences is Wayne Shorter's "The All Seeing Eye", thus he decided to pay homage to that album with a new version "by re-imagining it with new forms and different instrumentation", assembling an impressive group of musicians. Eisenstadt reports that his intention was to create something like "open-ended chamber music with grooves" (which he beautifully achieves in "Face of the deep", featuring a splendid solo by Sara Schoenbeck) but the result is unquestionably jazz of the finest blend, with the right amount of time and space given to all the performers to shine, inventively executed themes and a rhythm section where the leader and Walton fuse their multiple-idiom knowledge to create a basis for the smooth resolution of any inconvenience that might have happened, and of course didn't. Exploiting the potential of his partners in full, Eisenstadt decided to put reduced versions of his large ensemble pieces "Without roots" and "What we were told" to tape in the same day. Here they're presented in forms of octets conducted by Marc Lowenstein and played by the same musicians, with Aaron Smith as a second trumpet. The first is a semi-tonal contrapuntal network without loci classici of sorts, "non cantabile" for its large part but still containing a few unballasted riffs and improvisations that could put feet in motion, provided that you're familiar with odd metres. Instead, the fifteen minutes plus of the second octet sound like if the pages of the score had been scattered around by the wind, found after a long search and hastily positioned in a different order, which produced a better music than the original. Here, too, Eisenstadt's command of sonic languages runs parallel to the methods that he applies to deliver them from the locks of commonplace, his snappy drumming adding meaty substance to an already robust piece which oddly ends with the most memorizable (so to speak) melodies of the whole CD.
- Massimo Ricci
re: The Convergence Quartet
This band should be familiar to Vortex patrons, having played at the club in November 2006, during the tour that produced this album, recorded live in Oxford.
Their music straddles the border between structure and freedom, moving uncontrivedly from prearranged but relatively sketchy 'heads' (often a mere hint of a melody or a repeated motif) to freely improvised passages skilfully utilising the entire range of sounds and textures, from quiet skittering to full-throttle free-for-alls, available to a band comprising cornet/flugelhorn (Baltimore-born Taylor Ho Bynum, an ex-Braxton student who has played with the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra among others), piano (Alex Hawkins), bass (Dominic Lash) and drums (Harris Eisenstadt, from Toronto).
The telling exploitation of contrast (both sylistic and dynamic) is perhaps the band's greatest collective strength (on this album, 'Convergence' to take a representative piece includes both an insinuating, quietly stated theme and roiling free passages), but individually, too Taylor Ho Bynum incorporating everything from woozy smears to spearing runs into his playing, Alex Hawkins gunning the gamut from splashily percussive to pianissimo, Dominic Lash judiciously balancing steady support with solo excursions, Harris Eisenstadt driving the whole via everything from powerhouse rock-like beats to the subtlest of understatement the band rivet the attention just as successfully on this recording as they did at their Vortex gig.
- Vortex jazz writer
re: Convergence Quartet
Simon H. Fell says in the liner notes that he has no idea how this quartet got together and just wrote the notes based on his hearing the disc only. I recall Taylor telling me that the two young British gents here, got some sort of grant funds and asked Taylor and Harris to join them in the UK to work together. Anyone in the know, is well aware of the young master, Taylor Ho Bynum, from his recent collaborations with Anthony Braxton, as well as a handful of his own discs. Since moving back from L.A., where he worked with Adam Rudolph, Sam Rivers & Vinny Golia, Harris Eisenstadt has become another of those fine local percussionists who has turned up in many different projects over the past few years and has a half dozen fine discs of his own. I can't say that I had heard of the other two players before this, but I am greatly impressed. Each musician contributes a piece, while Taylor gets one long and one short one. Taylor's "Miscellaneous" opens with a fine drum solo, soon the bass, cornet and piano enter. The rhythm is like twisted funk with Taylor adding odd smears against the groove. The next section features cornet fragments, bowed bass scrapes, restrained free percussion and piano eruptions. It ends with a similar closing theme to the beginning. Dominic's "Goad" has Taylor bending his notes slowly in the distance and then the rest of the quartet enters in swirling waves. A series of intricate duos and trios take place, as the musicians exchange roles and ideas. Harris' "Convergence" opens with a haunting bass solo, a great theme unfolds with an unforgettable melody played by the flugel and piano over a
grand throbbing bass line and hypnotic percussion groove. The theme reminds me of one of those wonderful South African songs and Alexander
takes an appropriate Keith Tippett-like rambunctious, free piano solo. Alexander's "Goodbye, Sir" is next and begins freely and sparsely with Taylor's free-wheeling cornet insanity while Alex plays soft eerie sounds inside the piano. The piece gets more and more spare, until midway point when it slowly erupts with some restrained yet intense free piano and percussion. Taylor's "mm(pf)" brings things to a close with sparse and haunting sounds that float freely yet seem playfully connected and concludes with a nice melodic themed ending. This is a
most interesting disc that evolves through a variety of unexpected directions and will take some time to absorb completely.
- BLG
re: The All Seeing Eye + Octets
Just back from a residency in West Africa, Toronto-born avant-jazz percussionist Harris Eisenstadt - who has worked with the likes of Sam Rivers and Paul Rutherford - is celebrating a new release, "The All Seeing Eye + Octets." This disc pairs a reverent yet risk-taking spin through a classic Wayne Shorter set with two lush multipart works by Eisenstadt, which skillfully reconcile spacious groove with textural intimacy.
- Hank Shteamer
re: Harris Eisenstadt Canada Day Quintet
Mr. Eisenstadt, a drummer with experimental tendencies, explores his own compositions with the trumpeter Nate Wooley, the saxophonist Matt Bauder, the vibraphonist Chris Dingman and the bassist Keith Witty.
-Nate Chinen
re: The All Seeing Eye + Octets
Wayne Shorter’s The All Seeing Eye is a largely overlooked mid-‘60s masterpiece, historically overshadowed by contemporaneous recordings like Coltrane’s Ascension that have retained their revolutionary stripes over the decades. Recorded in the fall of 1965, it was Shorter’s first album written for a four-horn front line, which gave his sleekly contoured themes a new harmonic fullness, and it contained remarkably open spaces for improvisation. Using his tenure with Miles Davis as the metric, this is nine months after ESP and a full year before Miles Smiles; with an edge in the improvised sections that is closely akin to that on contemporary Blue Notes by Sam Rivers and Anthony Williams, the album places Shorter significantly to the left of his work with the trumpeter. Shorter’s syncretic brilliance and his unique ability to give triangulations of heady concepts a palpably intuitive feel is at an early apex. Its curious slide into the pack of also-ran minor classics makes taking on this album a double-edged sword, because it is a recording that many have heard and think they know, but remarkably few really do.
It does not take long to realize that drummer Harris Eisenstadt gets it, and has the right personnel to elevate his changes beyond well-studied conceits. His retooling of the front line, leaving only the trumpet from the original contingent, and replacing the trombone, alto and tenor with Andrew Pask and Brian Walsh’s clarinets and Sara Schoenbeck’s bassoon, gives the charts rich new colors without undermining their original intent. The introduction of the title tune is a case in point; the colors of the reeds bleed together, and David Rosenbloom’s lead trumpet has a subtle glow as a result. Eisenstadt’s use of vibes instead of piano is equally inspired, as it provides a shimmering sinew connecting the front line and the rest of the rhythm section. Vibraphonist Chris Dingman’s unaccompanied introduction to “Genesis” bypasses the ponderous pronouncements of the Herbie Hancock’s original, and provides a smoother glide path into the piece. Particularly in the open sections, bassist Scott Walton is closer to Gary Peacock’s approach on the Williams dates than Ron Carter’s on the Shorter original, contributing slashing counter lines and furious textures in the open sections, and providing a fatter bottom in the ensembles. Likewise, Eisenstadt’s other cohorts are equally engaging improvisers; their romp on “Chaos” has a terrific outbound energy that characterizes their improvising throughout.
The improvisational assets of the ensemble are arguably taxed more on the two three-part Eisenstadt-penned octets that round out the album, for which Eisenstadt brings on trumpeter Aaron Smith and conductor Marc Lowenstein. Both “Without Roots” and “What We Were Told” have an uncluttered feel to them, no small accomplishment given the sundry approaches to the mixing of notated and improvised packed into them. Eisenstadt and his cohorts maintain the same high level of interplay established on the Shorter pieces; beyond the shadow of the older work, however, they seem to take more risks and push harder on the envelope in the process.
- Bill Shoemaker
re: The All Seeing Eye + Octets
It's a bold few decisions Harris Eisenstadt makes for his new record. He starts off by covering the whole of Wayne's Shorter's1965 album The All Seeing Eye, but arranged for a new instrumentation and then pairs that with two suites of his own. It's the sort of thing you better know you can pull off if you're going to try.
And fortunately Eisenstadt does. He reworks Shorter's septet considerably... Its is very much a composed suite and so individual voices don't stand to be acknowledged the way a reworking of, say Coltrane's Ascension or Dolphy's Out to Lunch might demand. But Eisenstadt takes his arrangements further from the original by setting it for two clarinets, bassoon, trumpet, vibes, and drums. Interestingly, the trumpet is the only instrument that remains in the front line; in the notes for the original LP Shorter is quoted as saying that Hubbard "was essential... for those top notes in the ensemble passages." The trumpet retains a leading role here, voiced by Daniel Rosenboom.
All of that said, however, Eisenstadt's take doesn't stray too far from Shorter's own recording. It clocks in at about 10 minutes under the original and the woodwinds and vibes give it a different tone, but the feeling remains the same. It's a well-done, reverential take on 60s open jazz composition.
Having assembled a group to record in Los Angeles, Eisenstadt didn't want to leave it at the one project (as he explains in his liner notes). So, the drummer arranged two big band suites of his own, each running just over 15 minutes. And, just as Shorter added another horn to close out the record, Eisenstat adds a second trumpet for his. The playing is, perhaps, a little more lively, the pieces unsurprisingly more modern, but they work well with the first half of the disc. A bold move, yes, but one that speaks well for Eisenstadt as a composer and bandleader.
- Kurt Gottschalk
re: TinBag Quartet
Invigorated by the presence of percussionist Harris Eisenstadt...
- Troy Collins
re: Harris Eisenstadt Victoria Day Trio
...and the Victoria Day Trio, which includes the drummer Harris Eisenstadt, (the trumpeter Nate Wooley) and the saxophonist Matt Bauder.
- Nate Chinen
re: Steve Beresford and friends
...(one) of the city's finest cutting-edge improvisers.
- Time Out Jazz Staff
re: Bill Horvitz Expanded Band
...features such luminaries as Wayne Horvitz, Vincent Chancey, Robin Holcomb, Marcus Rojas, Marty Ehrlich, and Harris Eisenstadt.
- Time Out Jazz Staff
re: Harris Eisenstadt Low Trio
The drummer Harris Eisenstadt features a lower register, and his own tunes, in this experimental trio with Jose Davila on tuba and Ben Gerstein on trombone.
- Nate Chinen
re: Steve Beresford Trio
Mr. Beresford, a multi-instrumentalist long ensconced in British free-improvisational circles, teams up with the trumpeter Nate Wooley and the drummer Harris Eisenstadt.
- Nate Chinen
re: Kevin Uehlinger Quartet
Biochemistry and the I Ching are hardly common themes in jazz, but Kevin Uehlinger, a keyboardist, has used aspects of both in his compositional framework. He has also used musicians independent enough to strain against those constrictions: the trumpeter Sam Hoyt, the bassist Keith Witty and the drummer Harris Eisenstadt.
- Nate Chinen
re: Steve Beresford and the Signals For Tea Quartet
Mr. Beresford & his downtown all-star quartet, featuring Ned Rothenberg, Steve Bernstein, Shanir Blumenkranz, and
Harris Eisenstadt perform songs from his wonderful Avant CD, Signals for Tea, which has never been performed here is the US, as well as some spirited improvisations from this special one-time quartet.
- Bruce Gallanter
re: The Convergence Quartet
Collaborations between British and American musicians have a long history, but if the format of the Convergence Quartet promised nothing out of the ordinary, the same could not be said of the content. But more of that later. Two rising stars on the North American scene in trumpeter Taylor Ho Bynum—best known for his prominent role in master musician Anthony Braxton’s recent oeuvre—and increasingly visible Canadian percussionist Harris Eisenstadt joined with two young Oxford-based musicians, bassist Dominic Lash and pianist Alexander Hawkins.
The genesis of the idea stemmed from a previous visit by Eisenstadt and a desire on the part of the British duo to work with Bynum following his knockout contribution to Braxton’s triumph at the Royal Festival Hall in 2004. When the money became available, flights were booked and arrangements made for a short tour. I caught them on 6 November at Cambridge in the Bateman Auditorium (an intimate performance space with good acoustics negating the need for amplification) in Gonville & Caius College. An unfortunate combination of drunken violence and the ailing British railway system conspired to delay my journey, so I arrived just into the second piece of the evening.
After a swingingly lyrical theme the piece broke down into catch-me-if-you-can duets, first an exhibition of extended technique and between Lash and Bynum’s trumpet, then a spiky piano/drums pairing. What could be termed “European” free improvisation (though such non-idiomatic improv has increasingly taken root in North America too), blended intriguingly with jazzier extemporization, aided by compositional devices from the pens of all four. Each proved adept at moving smoothly between different camps in an unforced manner, although the compositional elements could be difficult to discern, which is how I like it, as in Lash’s piece “Go,” combining musical notation with sometimes obscure written instruction.
The centrepiece of the performance was Eisenstadt’s “Convergence,” which began with a wonderful Hawkins' piano introduction. Delicate plink-plonk dissonance morphed into swirling tendrils of sound before settling into a rumbling riff, echoed first by the bass and then with jazzy propulsion by the drums. Bynum laid out the gorgeous theme over the top, then took a fine flugelhorn solo, at first melodic but then fragmenting into abstract gesture.
Bynum is at the forefront of a new generation of creative trumpeters, along with the likes of Nate Wooley and Peter Evans (to name two who have impressed over the last couple of years), who are taking the instrument to another level. He boasts an astonishing timbral range, incorporating whistles, buzzes, vocalised yelps, and drones into a highly personal expressiveness, supplemented by imaginative use of a variety of mutes. In one sequence he combined a circular-breathed line with vocalised multiphonics to jaw- dropping effect.
Lash mixed an imaginative range of technique with jazz chops, seeming comfortable whether scratching and scrabbling with his bow, or anchoring the flow with ostinato patterns. The same was true of all four, with Hawkins as happy delving inside the piano as pounding the keys.
Eisenstadt projected calmness, almost seeming to float above his kit, as he moved between pulse and commentary, sometimes modifying his sound with his elbows, or with sheets and blanket draped over parts of the kit for textural variation.
So what was new about this collaboration? Well to my mind it was part of an increasing tendency to look at free improvisation, not as an alternative to jazz, but as yet another idiom to be incorporated alongside more traditional elements in a no- holds-barred approach toward playing music grounded in the original seminal free spirit of jazz. The group touched on some very exciting territory, and I hope they continue to meet, developing the cross-cultural fertilization even further. Like others on the tour, this gig was recorded, and I look forward to any forthcoming memento from this collaboration.
- John Sharpe
Touching Extremes
re: Brassum Live
Does anyone remember Bill Frisell's music circa "Rambler", way before it became a truck driver's wet dream? Well, Brassum sound like a cross of that - minus Frisell - and Frank Zappa's recently rediscovered "Petite Wazoo"; but there is so much more. A quartet led by tuba player Mark Weaver, featuring Dan Clucas on cornet, Michael Vlatkovich on trombone and Harris Eisenstadt on drums, this band is a peculiar assemblage of theatrical method and half-ironic, half-dramatic lyricism. The seven compositions, all penned by Weaver, show an almost painful progression towards the core of a music which accepts no sticker and moves according to contrapuntal laws gathering funeral marching and jazz structuralism, all the way through dozens of impulsive sketches and memorable themes. Two of the pieces are indeed trios; in one of them ("Brown Blue") Clucas delivers a gorgeous cornet solo. The leader's bass lines are cleverly intelligible, the proper skeleton of a sound body that walks and runs without any stumbling. Vlatkovich and Eisenstadt play with the same attitude of a couple of conservatory-trained street jugglers, adding a touch of beautifully restrained freedom to the whole. The musicians' tightness makes this release sound like a studio album, as these guys tend to cohesion rather than spread away from a center. It feels just right.
- Massimo Ricci
re: Brassum Live (pfmentum)
Brassum features Mark Weaver on tuba and compositions, Dan Clucas on cornet, Michael Vlatkovich on trombone and Harris Eisenstadt on drums. This is certainly a unique quartet of three brass (tuba, cornet & trombone) and drums. And the leader (or main composer, Mark Weaver) is the person I am least familiar with. Dan Clucas has a previous disc on pfMentum, while Mr. Vlatkovich has various discs out on Nine Winds, Jazz'halo & pfMentum. Drum wiz, Harris Eisenstadt, is an old friend who lives here on occasion and also has various discs out with Sam Rivers, Simon Fell, Rob Brown, Adam Rudolph and Steve Swell.
Mark Weaver does write odd tunes. "Selvage" features all three horns playing their parts in unison, as Harris plays a consistent flow of ever shifting drum parts. Mark's tuba and Harris' drums make a fine rhythm team, as
both Clucas's cornet and Vlatkovich's trombone take fine solos. I am reminded of the days when either Joe Daley or Bob Stewart, both tuba players, worked hard with the Sam Rivers Trio. Speaking of trios, there are two trio pieces here. One is for trombone, tuba and drums and it is a slow bluesy number with some fine earthy trombone. The other trio is for cornet, tuba and drums and Dan takes a grand cornet solo once more. "The Meaning of the Word" has a rather funky groove played well by Harris as the three horns play tight harmonies. Both Dan on cornet and Michael on trombone again take spirited solos. One of the things that makes this disc so fine is the great
interplay between the tuba and drums, they sound as if they have been working together
for so many years. I dig the closing tune, "Pumpkin Pie", because it has such a great groove when it begins and then breaks down to freer parts for the entire midsection. Boss brass and dynamic drums from this marvelous quartet.
- Bruce Lee Gallanter
re: The Diplomats
"Recommended
New Release"
— David Adler, AAJ New York at Night
re: The Diplomats
Alto saxophonist Rob
Brown, trombonist Steve Swell and drummer Harris Eisenstadt are The Diplomats.
Recorded live at The Bop Shop in Rochester, New York, We Are Not Obstinate
Islands is a free jazz album devoid of unnecessary histrionics. Although
the stripped down immediacy of the 1960's New Thing is apparent, The Diplomats
take on their conception of freedom with an almost casual air.
The trio works their way gradually through skeletal structures and tenuous
themes. Rumbustious energy is traded for subtle interaction and lyrical
abstraction. Eisenstadt is a tasteful and nuanced percussionist, never
overplaying, generating just enough heat to provide his cohorts with the
right amount of fuel. Brown's trenchant lyrical side is given free rein
on a set of long winded, unadorned themes. Swell is blustery and genteel,
as the mood suits. Serpentine melodies and cathartic exhortations mingle
with conversational exchanges between the horns.
Without a harmonic instrument to anchor the trio, nor even a bass player
to manage the time, the trio takes it upon themselves to maintain pulse,
harmony and dynamics. Working with available open space, rather than attempting
to continuously fill it, the group maintains balance, uncluttered by excess.
We Are Not Obstinate Islands is a text book example of unconventional
small group improvisation at its most magnanimous.
- Troy Collins
Touching
Extremes
re:
The Diplomats
Rob Brown's alto saxophone and Steve Swell's trombone burn every bridge behind them by playing with consequential, lucid incidence five salvos where Harris Eisenstadt's drums are a means of emancipation from the constrictions of powerlessly swinging cerebral death. The perimeter of this flexible architecture is highlighted by large doses of furious fantasy and compressed irony, with Swell's great tone akin to a rubicund, Orson Welles-like face trying to alert his companions about a dire situation which, on the contrary, they find quite funny. Brown responds accordingly, counterpunching with his saxophone intelligence while avoiding the traps of bebop atrocities and the frightening "Coltrane's-long-distance-nephew" syndrome; his phrasing is enriched by a kind of virtuosism that's virulent, galvanizing but never bourgeois. Eisenstadt bounces his sticks on perfectlly tuned skins which are a joy to hear, an elastic juggler whose behavior is the one of a motor whose stroke number changes with the velocity of a thought. Tasty as it is, this difficult music is a spiced vegeburger of multiform shapes and colours - no fats, just a lot of substance. Another, please.
- Massimo Ricci
re:
The All Seeing Eye
It’s a telling trend: latter-day improvisers revisiting significant
albums from the past in concert, as they’ve done locally with classic
sets first recorded by John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock and Oliver Nelson.
The latest attempt at grail recovery is by Harris Eisenstadt; his object
is The All Seeing Eye, a 1965 Wayne Shorter album whose chord clouds,
hard swing, threatening moods and improvisational wildfire fit right into
the gestalt of expanding horizons that was current then and is returning
now. Eisenstadt is one of the few drummers who can make you flash on the
earthy feel of Ornette Coleman percussionist Ed Blackwell, as well as
a modern composer and bandleader with a growing list of credits from duo
to large ensemble. So he’s clearly the man for the job. And his
Intrusion octet, laying out a palette that can realize any color scheme,
corrals some of our best players: Chris Dingman (vibes), Andrew Pask and
Brian Walsh (clarinets), Daniel Rosenboom and Aaron Smith (trumpets),
Sara Schoenbeck (bassoon) and Scott Walton (contrabass). Marc Lowenstein
conducts.
- Greg Burk
The Diplomats
Penetrating altoist Rob Brown, bawdy trombonist Steve Swell, and melodic drummer Harris Eisenstadt first joined forces for a 2004 tour. Now they've got an upcoming CD on Clean Feed to show for their efforts, which is more than reason enough to hit the stage in a celebrating mood.
- Time Out NY jazz staff
re: Upstream Orchestra premier of
SOCAN commission "Without Roots"
Eisenstadt... conducted the ensemble like a cheer-leader, reaching high into the air with both hands, telegraphing arches and swoops and glides and slow-motion whiplashes to the musicians as a way of shaping the sound.
- Stephen Pedersen
re: Harris Eisenstadt Quintet
Drummer/composer Harris Eisenstadt (makes) complex well-crafted post-bop with an ear toward experimentation.
- Time Out NY jazz staff
Rutherford, Muller, Eisenstadt Trio
In the heyday of Spruce
Street Forum, famous improvisers from all over the globe performed in
San Diego. Ever since it shut down, the number of world-class free improvisers
playing here has declined. Trummerflora has been booking interesting groups
and people at Voz Alta, but last week they were told by the board there
that they'd have to pay a rental fee for the space, and so, like SUSHI
and Sledgehammer, there is yet one more established San Diego performing
arts organization without a venue.
Thus, the appearance by trombonist Paul Rutherford Wednesday evening at
the UCSD Mandeville Recital Hall was especially welcome. Rutherford was
one of the first free improvisers in England, forming the Spontaneous
Music Ensemble with John Stevens and Trevor Watts in 1965. When most of
the free improv crowd in San Diego were barely able to shake their baby
rattles, Paul Rutherford and his contemporaries were bewildering or delighting
European listeners. They made music that did not rely on existing compositions,
that went so far as to avoid traditional harmonies, rhythms, exploring
their instruments to incorporate any and all sounds into their music.
Rutherford rarely visits the U.S., and when he does, it's usually not
the Southwest. Rutherford may not have the following of the late influential
improviser Derek Bailey or the visionary saxophonist Peter Brötzmann,
but dammit, he was there at the beginning of the European improv scene,
he's madealmost 100 recordings since, and he's still out there playing
rings around the youngsters.Torsten Müller
He was joined for this gig by bassist Torsten Müller (a generation
younger than Rutherford), and by L.A. drummer Harris Eisenstadt (a generation
younger than Müller). You might expect Rutherford to step up to the
front of this trio, but just as often Eisenstadt or Müller would
be the focus of your attention, and throughout the evening all three musicians
collaborated in creating unified textures in which noone really stood
out. At such moments the trio achieved that elusive goal of many free
improvisers, a true musical collective.
While Rutherford is known for extending trombone techniques (he is credited
with being the first improviser to use multiphonics), these were kept
to a minimum. Most of the concert, he laid back and played more lyrical
lines using a conventional trombone tone. But he also demonstrated his
enormous repertory of sounds from time to time: singing into the trombrone
while playing a different note, vocalizing through the trombone, playing
with a wheezy timbre. One passage was reminiscent of Tibetan monk chanting,
a gravelly basso profundo with a chord on top of it, also suggestive of
a didgeridoo.Harris Eisenstadt
While Müller was also proficient in unusual techniques on his instrument,
Eisenstadt's sonic vocabulary was a little more attention-grabbing. To
begin their second improvisation, the drummer had a five-minute solo in
which he bowed the cymbals of his kit with what looked and sounded like
a guitar string, eliciting vocal-type growls and squeals (which his companions
later matched on their instruments). In the first number, he threw a cloth
with a hole in its middle over a cymbal to muffle it, and in the last
number had a odd, clunky, yet affecting moment playing a triangle rather
sloppily at the same time he struck a cymbal.
The concert was short, barely an hour long, four improvisations lasting
15 minutes each. While I've heard more transcendental improvisation moments,
it's still rare in San Diego to hear a trio so in tune with each other's
sensibilities, a trio that remained solidly inspired throughout their
entire set. They were generous with giving each other solo moments, the
solos were worthwhile, and when the time came for the other two to reenter,
they always did so with taste and sympathy.
Attendance was about 50 people, and probably half of them were there for
a UCSD course requirement. You'd expect more of the local improvisation
community to turn out for such a distinguished figure. Who knows if or
when Rutherford will ever return here? I was certainly glad to be there,
and I sensed that the other musicians in the audience treasured the concert
as well.
re:Bishop/Harris Eisenstadt/Roebke This was recorded live at Re Club in Krakow, Poland in October of 2006. Since leaving the Vandermark 5, trombone great Jeb Bishop has kept busy in a variety of settings: Globe Unity Orchestra, Flatlands Collective, Keefe Jackson and even more. Jeb has consistently knocked me out in any context I've heard, especially his playing with Globe Unity last year. This appears to be - Bruce Gallanter
re: Canada Day at Banjo Jim's 3/2/08 Harris Eisenstadt, a drummer with strong experimental tendencies, explores his own compositions in this working band with the trumpeter Nate Wooley, the saxophonist Matt Bauder, the vibraphonist Chris Dingman and the bassist Eivind Opsvik. - Nate Chinen
re: Guus Janssen Trio How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Via Cornelia Street Café apparently. This was the odd path taken by Dutch composer Guus Janssenlast month, where he preceded the premiere of one of his works at the famed concert hall with a much more low-key appearance at the basement club (Feb. 4th). The booking was last minute and initially billed as a quartet with trumpeter Thomas Heberer but turned out to be an improvised trio session with local rhythm sectioneers Reuben Radding and Harris Eisenstadt. As befits someone who makes his living writing music, even Janssen’s improvisations had a compositional - Andrey Henkin
re: Nate Wooley Quartet + Canada Day Mr. Wooley, a trumpeter, and Mr. Eisenstadt, a drummer, take turns appearing in each other’s experimentally inclined bands. Both favor the sound of vibraphonists; Matt Moran plays in Mr. Wooley’s quartet at 9 p.m., and Chris Dingman appears in Mr. Eisenstadt’s quintet at 10 p.m. - Nate Chinen from artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/ "... deft free drummer Harris Eisenstadt..." - Howard Mandel
re: Canada Day Harris Eisenstadt, a drummer with strong experimental tendencies, explores his own compositions with the trumpeter Nate Wooley, the saxophonist Matt Bauder, the vibraphonist Chris Dingman and the bassist Eivind Opsvik. - Nate Chinen
Toronto-born avant-jazz percussionist Harris Eisenstadt has stocked his Canada Day band with outstanding young players: trumpeter Nate Wooley, saxist Matt Bauder, vibist Chris Dingman and bassist Eivind Opsvik. - Hank Shteamer
The compositions of Toronto-born avant-jazz percussionist Harris Eisenstadt skillfully reconcile spacious groove with textural intricacy. Eisenstadt’s Canada Day band includes saxist Matt Bauder, trumpeter Nate Wooley, vibist Chris Dingman and bassist Eivind Opsvik. Wooley leads his own group in the opening slot. - Hank Shteamer
re: Schoenbeck/Hwang/Filiano/Eisenstadt In the first set of this experimental series, the drummer Harris Eisenstadt assembles a quartet with the bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck, the violinist Jason Kao Hwang and the bassist Ken Filiano. - Nate Chinen
re: Creative Music Tuesdays Barry Altschul, a drummer of broad experience and sharp instincts, digs in with the saxophonist Hayes Greenfield and the bassist Ed Schuller in an early set. Then the drummer Harris Eisenstadt leads an exploratory group he calls the Canada Day Quintet. from artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/ "... drummer Harris Eisenstadt, whose recording The All Seeing Eye + Octets celebrates Wayne Shorter without imitating him." - Howard Mandel
re: Harris Eisenstadt Canada Day Quintet After two years at Bar 4 in Park Slope, the pianist James Carney’s Sunday night Konceptions series is moving to the Center for Improvisational Music, a quieter space where a B.Y.O.B. policy will take effect. The first performance in the new series will feature the drummer Harris Eisenstadt and his Canada Day Quintet, which includes the trumpeter Nate Wooley and the vibraphonist Chris Dingman. - Nate Chinen
Divided up into to two distinct but related programs of music, The All Seeing Eye + Octets finds percussionist, composer, and fellow blogger Harris Eisenstadt tackling two bodies of music: the first 5 tracks are septet arrangements and interpretations of Wayne Shorter's 1965 album The All Seeing Eye, and the final 6 tracks are octets, augmented by a conductor and penned by Mr. Eisenstadt himself. I've been listening to the album for a few weeks now, and before I wrote about it I had to go back and listen to the original Wayne Shorter album so I could hear how Harris has interpreted Wayne Shorter's music. First, the instrumentation: the numbers have basically remained the same, with Wayne Shorter leading a septet through most of his disc, with his brother Alan Shorter making it an octet on the last track. The instruments and timbers have changed however, with Eisenstadt employing a vibraphone, two clarinet/bass clarinetists, trumpet, bassoon, bass, and drums. It's certainly a reedy sound, with the bassoon and two clarinetists, and the vibraphone, an instrument I am particularly fond of, adds an important sound to the mix. The lineups of Shorter and Eisenstadt have in common an absence of a traditional chordal instrument like piano or guitar, and although the vibraphone could fill that role, it doesn't tend to do so in the arrangements. I find the result to be sonically different in ways that are complimentary to the original; he's taken a different palette to paint the a similar picture, the old forms recognizable but transformed in the new product. The All Seeing Eye portion of the program has a remarkable flow and continuity between tracks. There's a mood that pervades the proceedings that I'd rather not attribute to any specific emotion or association, but there is definitely a thread that binds it all together. Part of it is the mix and production which is very consistent throughout, bringing the winds up front and keeping the drums more distant, lending some depth to the sound. I think the other part of it has to do with the sound of the arrangements that Eisenstadt has created; it's clear that he had a very specific sound in mind for this ensemble and project. I find the end result to be complimentary to the original without having so much overlap that comparison becomes preoccupation. Covering a song can be a thorny proposition, let alone a whole album, and Eisenstadt has managed to do it with marked success. The second program on the album is a series of Octets, Without Roots I, II, and III, and What We Were Told, I, II, and III. There are inevitably going to be comparisons made with chamber groups, given the presence of a conductor and the instrumentation and sound. To my ears, the presence of a conductor was probably necessary for some of the cues given the fact that the leader was behind a drum set with both hands occupied during the proceedings. And while there is a harmonic quality that certainly evokes more chamber-y contexts, there's an underlying rhythmic thrust and groove that pops up throughout that distinguishes it from the chamber pack. It's obvious to my ears that Harris Einstadt is the kind of composer and listener who doesn't care much for genre boundaries, knows what his ears like, and isn't afraid to pursue that sound, even if someone might use dirty words like hybrid or fusion to describe the result (not that I would ever use the F word in my own descriptions). Whatever you want to call it, the Octet portion of the album comes across as thoughtfully lush. You might notice that I haven't delved into the particularities of each player's sound and musicianship on the record, and I think that's because it's really got a strong ensemble sound that doesn't end up feeling like a blowing session where the individual voices are at the center of the sound. This isn't to say that the album lacks in strong individual moments or players, but it's not the first thing that came to mind when I sat down to write about the music. Ultimately, The All Seeing Eye+Octets is a gorgeous body of music that I think will age well. Highly recommended. - Daniel Melnick
re: Louie Belogenis Trio The tenor saxophonist Louie Belogenis is at his best freely improvising with creative partners like the bassist Eivind Opsvik and the drummer Harris Eisenstadt, who join him for a concert in his continuing series. - Nate Chinen
re: The All Seeing Eye + Octets Creativity need not be predicated on preoccupation with the new. Percussionist Harris Eisenstadt has been proving that axiom for the past few years, his interests and travels bringing him into contact with African musical traditions that predate Western musical ones by wide margins. On this recent project, he sidelines that train of inquiry in favor of revisiting one of the lesser heralded classics of the New Thing era. Conventional wisdom of the time viewed Wayne Shorter’s The All-Seeing Eye as an ambitious, if at times overreaching, endeavor where the saxophonist attempted at channeling metaphysical and cosmic themes into music. Averse opinions have leavened in the decades since, but the album remains one of Shorter’s more marginalized works. Eisenstadt recognized the worth in modifying the music to his own designs, tailoring it to an ensemble sensitive to the thrust of Shorter’s original, but also dissimilar in several key ways. Shorter’s suite made use of the conventional septet instrumentation of saxophones, brass and rhythm section with arrangements that stressed sweeping dynamic shifts and passages of dark ensemble dissonance. Eisenstadt’s interpretations lack some of the intensity and sweep of the originals. They breathe better than their predecessors, but also siphon off some of the excitement in the bargain. Part of this disparity stems from the altered ensemble make-up. Eisenstadt replaces the saxophones parts of the score with clarinets: Andrew Pask and Brian Walsh alternate duty on regular and bass variants of the instrument. In combination with Sara Schoenbeck’s bassoon, the reed section is more colorful and nuanced than Shorter’s, but also less prone to the energizing brawn that made the hardbop sections of the saxophonist’s score so exhilarating. Daniel Rosenboom ably fills the slot originally occupied by Freddie Hubbard or Alan Shorter. His trumpet brings greater breadth of moods and meshes with Eisenstadt’s more measured take on the music. Chris Dingman’s luminous vibes also contribute to the spacious, ethereal feel to parts of the set, echoing some of Bobby Hutcherson’s work contemporaneous with the original recording. The closing “Mephistopheles” sounds almost like a Sun Ra space march with Dingman’s dissonant tones threading through the dark interplay of the ensemble like Ra’s antique clavoline. The result is music with more chamberish focus and Eisenstadt’s own playing further accentuates the difference, with a textured tack quite different from Joe Chambers’ original, often bracing, approach on drums. Eisenstadt fills the remainder of the disc with a pair of three-part suites for octet, adding the trumpet of Aaron Smith and enlisting the aid of conductor Marc Lowenstein. These pieces exude an even stronger chamber flavor and remind me a bit of Jimmy Giuffre’s stabs at third stream scoring. While somewhat sedate in sections, they work as a fine complement to the earlier Shorter pieces. Like his source composer, it occasionally feels as if Eisenstadt’s ambitions fall partially short of his apparent aims, but applause is due for his courage to test his mettle against a body of music with such historical magnitude. - Derek Taylor
Keyboardist James Carney’s Konceptions series—a key showcase for Brooklyn’s progressive-jazz community—relocates from Bar 4 to CIM. Performing tonight is the skillful percussionist-composer Harris Eisenstadt, who has worked with the likes of Sam Rivers and Paul Rutherford. - Time Out New York Jazz Staff
re: Harris Eisenstadt's Gewel and Burnham/Blumenkranz/Eisenstadt Mr. Eisenstadt, a venturesome drummer, performs a rugged early set with the bassist Shanir Blumenkranz, among others. In a second set he’ll present some new West African-inspired music for a group that includes the saxophonist Michaël Attias and the trumpeter-cornetists Taylor Ho Bynum, Russ Johnson and Nate Wooley. - Nate Chinen
re: The All Seeing Eye + Octets - Marc Medwin
re: Vinny Golia Trio and Quartet Mr. Golia, a multireedist and pillar of the West Coast improv scene, performs here with the bassist Reuben Radding and the drummer Harris Eisenstadt; the trumpeter Nate Wooley joins them in the second set. - Nate Chinen
Eisenstadt, a percussion-wielding melodist and storyteller, leads his wind-heavy ensemble Gewel in material inspired by his latest visit to West Africa. In the earlier set, he stages good-natured skirmishes with bassist Blumenkranz and guests. - Hank Shteamer from Lerterland re: The All Seeing Eye + Octets Adventurous drummer/composer, anything under his name guaranteed worth a listen. - David Adler
Versatile reedist Golia, an avant-garde melodist and one-man booster club for West Coast experimentalists, offers two sets of original sounds with bassist Reuben Radding and drummer Harris Eisenstadt. Trumpeter Nate Wooley joins in on the second set. - Hank Shteamer re: Harris Eisenstadt Canada Day Quintet The drummer Harris Eisenstadt leads his Canada Day Quintet, with the trumpeter Nate Wooley, the saxophonist Matt Bauder, the vibraphonist Chris Dingman and the bassist Shanir Blumenkranz. - Nate Chinen from The Christian Science Monitor Noteworthy New Jazz recordings: - Norman Weinstein
re: The Zone - Jay Collins
...an accomplished drummer/composer. - Hank Shteamer
re: Twice Told Tales This expressive and experimental quartet, conversing mainly in terms of free improvisation, consists of the tenor saxophonists Tony Malaby and Louis Belogenis, the bassist Mark Helias and the drummer Harris Eisenstadt. - Nate Chinen
re: Carter/Belogenis Quartet Daniel Carter, an exploratory multireedist and trumpeter, engages the saxophonist Louis Belogenis in free-spirited dialogue; together they interact with Hill Greene on bass and Harris Eisenstadt on drums. - Nate Chinen
re: The All Seeing Eye + Octets Recently relocating from Los Angeles to New York City, percussionist Harris Eisenstadt is becoming a ubiquitous presence in the bi-coastal creative improvised music scene. Wadada Leo Smith, Sam Rivers, Bobby Bradford, Jeb Bishop, Rob Brown, Vinny Golia and a cast of notables have all utilized his skills in the past. The All Seeing Eye + Octets is his sixth album as a leader and the culmination of his West Coast-based artistic achievement. Altering the timbre and tone of the original 1965 session by re-organizing the instrumental palette, Eisenstadt employs a richly hued woodwind trio in lieu of Shorter's low brass and saxophones. The plangent bassoon of Sara Schoenbeck mingles with the caterwauling clarinets of Andrew Plask and Brian Walsh as they soar where the original line-up churned, blending fervent expressionism with lyrical precision. Eisenstadt adds lift to the ensemble by replacing the traditional chordal safety net of the piano with the spare airiness of Chris Dingman's kaleidoscopic vibraphone. Interwoven with the lyrical refrains of Daniel Rosenbloom's trumpet, they cast a brilliant metallic sheen over to the octet's resonant, woody timbre. Driving the group with graceful fluidity, bassist Scott Walton and the leader maintain the pacing of the original album, driving the octet through brisk tempos and dreamy ballads. Shorter's ominous harmonies and driving rhythms provide poignant contrast to Eisenstadt's long-form suites. Occupying the fertile middle ground between the accessible and the adventurous; Eisenstadt's writing blends lyricism with sophistication in a satisfyingly organic way. Originally conceived for an ensemble at least twice the size, “What We Were Told” and “Without Roots” are given animated performances by the stripped down octet. Occupying the second half of the record, these long-form compositions integrate Western Classicism with shades of Copeland, Ives and Ligeti punctuated by knotty interjections of blistering free-bop and lilting African folk melodies. Avoiding typical Third Stream pitfalls, the octet eschews the studiously cerebral for the lyrically direct. Blending melodic kernels of euphonious depth with intricate counterpoint and dense harmonic voicings, Eisenstadt's writing resonates with singular clarity. The All Seeing Eye + Octets presents a vision of the future cast through the lens of the past. - Troy Collins
Raised in Toronto, this outing by young stalwart, drummer/composer Harris Eisenstadt signifies the last recordings made during his residence on California's West Coast. Now, a vital and increasingly influential New York-based artist, he looms as one of those rare birds, namely as a drummer who projects an expansive and rather wide-open sense of musicality. An ambitious effort indeed, Eisentadt renders a personalized spin on four tracks by sax legend Wayne Shorter, where complex charts, featuring chamber-like horns, swing vamps are augmented by notions of realism that is defined by musical wit. Along with a few cosmic meltdowns, intermittently executed within avant-garde and progressive jazz-like improvisation, the drummer throttles the rhythms with massive press rolls and buoyant grooves. On Shorter’s “Chaos,” the hornists’ parallel the song moniker via frisky lower register exchanges amid a sinuous string of events and interlacing choruses. And on many of these works, the drummer steers the aggregation with variable flows and keenly implemented dynamics. Wayne’s brother and free-jazz trumpeter Alan Shorter’s piece titled “Mephistopheles,” is led by Daniel Rosenboom’s scorching trumpet solo, topped-off by the ensemble’s climactically-designed crescendos. In addition, the band pursues colorific themes that elicit mystical attributes. But the second part of this album is executed by a horns-based octet and rhythm section. With “What We Were Told,” the ensemble’s knotty twists and turns are firmed-up by a multi-layered arrangement. Eisenstadt is at the top of his game here. In effect, his vision and fortitude shines glowingly. - Glenn Astarita
re: The All Seeing Eye + Octets Harris Eisenstadt is a terrific avanteer who’s established himself on both coasts over the last several years, and you’ll be hearing about him for decades to come. As a drummer, he has an ability to merge with an ensemble’s subatomic essence while subtly driving it. As a composer, he has a great ear for oblique harmonies and massive cloudy structures. One of his gods is Wayne Shorter, whose “The All Seeing Eye” he revisits credibly but not overreverentially on his fine new CD, which also features some tart and moody new octet music. If you wonder why Eisenstadt’s gifts stand out with particular resonance, he regularly visits Africa to soak up the spirit from the source. -Greg Burk
re: The All Seeing Eye + Octets "Recommended New Release." - Laurence Donohue-Greene, editor
re: The Diplomats - Nate Chinen
... one of the city's avant-jazz elite. - Time Out Jazz Staff
re: Harris Eisenstadt Low Trio with Ben Gerstein and Jose Davila ...the trio of responsive improvisers should be well-worth catching. - TONY jazz staff
The Convergence Quartet, American cornettist/flugelhorn player Taylor Ho Bynum, Canadian drummer Harris Eisenstadt, UK pianist Alex Hawkins and Oxford Improvisers' bassist Dominic Lash (7), operate in the fertile hinterland between structure (they hint at rhythmically regular playing via the use of sketchy 'heads', and concluded their first set with a Monk tune) and free improvisation. Eisenstadt, like, say, Jim Black or Tom Rainey, proved as adept at providing relatively heavy, almost rock-type beats as in skittering and shuffling behind free playing. Hawkins (who provided stage commentary as well as compositions) operated inside the piano as tellingly as on the keyboard (where he exploits the percussive potential of the instrument to great effect as well as playing dazzlingly fleet runs punctuated by high-note splashes and bass-note rumbles). Lash held the band sound together with his steadiness, occasionally erupting into blistering solo statements. Ho Bynum ran through the entire range of his instruments' tonal possibilities, using smears, lip-smacks, high-note squeals, plus the odd run to spearhead a band approach that clearly riveted the attention of a decent-sized audience. - Vortex Jazz website reviewer
re: The Diplomats The title of the Diplomats' (penetrating alto saxophonist Rob Brown, bawdy trombonist Steve Swell, and melodic drummer Harris Eisenstadt) new record We Are Not Obstinate Islands (Clean Feed) tips you off to their garrulous interaction. - K. Leander Williams
re: The Zone "Recommended New Release." - Laurence Donohue-Greene, editor
The Convergence Quartet at the Jacqueline du Pr Music Building were playing the final gig in a nationwide tour. It was fitting they should end up here, as bass player Dominic Lash and pianist Alexander Hawkins are both based in Oxford and it is through Lash's involvement with Oxford Improvisers that this co-operation with two remarkable musicians, Canadian drummer Harris Eisenstadt and American trumpeter Taylor Ho Bynum, was made possible. These are both players that bring great control and sensitivity to free improvisation, an area of jazz often criticised for its waywardness and apparent disorganisation. There had obviously been some fairly rigorous rehearsal time as all the pieces were written by members of the quartet and everyone was referring to a score of some kind. The arrangements gave each player a degree of space and the group was often working in duo or trio form. This allowed us to fully appreciate the range of colour and diversity in the music and to hear clearly the more subtle moments, particularly from Ho Bynum's muted trumpet and Lash's intricacies on the bass. Eisenstadt's drumming was extraordinarily controlled and colourful, including his more extreme uses of the kit. Alex Hawkins, with a fierce technique, showed an awareness that a torrent of notes is not always needed. This was a performance of great diversity and skill that showed what a diverse world free improvisation can inhabit. - Paul Medley
re: Brassum Live You’re in an echoey loft around 1965, then you suck the long pipe and the walls open up onto dim, winding roads lined with moss-draped cypresses. - Greg Burk
re: The Zone and The Diplomats We Are Not Obstinate Islands is a live recording of a freely improvised concert in Rochester performed by drummer Harris Eisenstadt, Rob Brown on alto and the ubiquitous Steve Swell on trombone. The five tracks are neither overlong nor too far out and while the musicians are clearly listening to each other and keying off each other's cues, no single player grabs more than his fair share of the spotlight. Brown's playing is coherent and strong, his tone on alto full of buzz and hum. Swell's trombone bubbles, sputters and wheezes like an agitated emphysema patient. Eisenstadt directs the conversation without much attention to the strictures of time, but manages to move the improvisations forward with carefully placed beats, rimshots and cymbal shimmers. The Diplomats make their case concisely, with few unnecessary embellishments. While the Diplomats walk the middle ground between cerebral minimalism and maximum free jazz, Eisenstadt and his partners on The Zone are firmly in the category of the former. Recorded in front of an audience in Santa Fe, veteran trombonist Paul Rutherford keeps to soft bursts of notes, bassist Torsten Müller quietly bows and lightly bounces on and off his strings and Eisenstadt spends a lot of time gently tapping on the wooden edge of his drum. Barely perceptible squeaks contribute to the atmosphere, as if someone were scratching nylon with his fingernails. Chicago trombonist Jeb Bishop's liner notes express his admiration for Rutherford and a special appreciation for what's going on among the musicians and builds a convincing argument that you should listen again. Attention paid will be repaid. But this Zone is melody- and groove-free. - Jeff Stockton
Paul Rutherford is one the giants of experimental trombone playing, he can be found on some 55+ discs with other giants like Braxton, Brotzmann, Lol Coxhill, Elton Dean, Paul Dunmall, Tony Oxley and groups like Iskra 1903, SME and Mike Westbrook. He has ten discs as a leader, three of which are solo trombone efforts, often considered to be the best of this type of endeavor. Bassist Torsten Muller can be heard on discs with Coxhill & Rutherford (Emanem), a quartet with Vandermark & Ruthford and a quartet with Davey Williams & LaDonna Smith. Bi-coastal drum wiz, Harris Eisenstadt, is currently living here and has recorded with Sam Rivers & Adam Rudolph, Rob Brown, Simon H. Fell, Brassum and has a few of his own discs out. This trio, with Dylan van der Schyff replacing Harris, played at the Vision Fest in June of this year and this disc was recorded at the Center for Contemporary Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico in January of 2006. 'The Zone' consists of four long improvisations, from 10 to 20 minutes in length. "Booming Grounds" begins with those odd sounds that only a European free contrabassist could make. Bowing the bass, yet making those indescribably strange sounds. Although an American, Harris has mastered the art of the coaxing eerie sounds from his percussion, rubbing cymbals, using mallets and playing the drums with his hands. Mr. Rutherford has a most distinctive sound/approach. Slowly and softly making those vocal-like sounds on his trombone.. Mr. Muller sounds quite a bit like the late bassist, Peter Kowald, who was also German and was a pioneer of the many of the same bass explorations. The sound on this disc is excellent and done by our friend Steve Schmidt. I dig the organic push and pull that runs throughout these pieces, as Rutherford presents his part on the ongoing conversation, Torsten's acoustic bass and Harris nimble percussion, weave with and around one another with grace and creative quirkiness. You can almost hear these men thinking as they exchange ideas and answer each other's lines. The key for magical improv is when it comes together and sounds as if the trio is one connected force. This happens pretty often here and I always smile when it does. - Bruce Gallanter
re: The Diplomats Utilizing only the tonal colors available from one trombone, one alto saxophone and one drum set, the Diplomats still create five varied and multi-hued improvisations. - Ken Waxman
re: The Diplomats Tagged with a band name epitomizing their collective improv propensities, The Diplomats get down to brass tacks on their Clean Feed debut. The pedigrees of the three players make the music pretty easy to peg: ardent free jazz dictated by dramatic twists and turns. Nevertheless, their chosen instrumentation still leaves space for subtle surprises like the detour into low-key balladry that comprises “Past the Root.” Steve Swell’s strong ideological convictions invest the poetry-inspired track titles with timely pertinence, his frequently clenched and hard-bitten trombone reflecting a deep-seated dissatisfaction with the prevailing political climate. Brown is often just as animated on alto, his normally unflappable visage screwed up in a tempestuous expulsion of notes spoken in barbed-tongued bursts. Harris Eisenstadt’s tractable, split-second percussion style ensures that the rhythms roll both fast and fecund, his sticks reacting to and compounding on the serpentine trajectories traced by the horns. A seesawing funk beat here, a fluttering barrage of brushes there; each of his constructions provides the right measure of color coupled with propulsion. On “The Unsure of Our Times”, he fields smoldering testimony from first Swell, then Brown, then the two in tandem, delivering slowly detonating drum commentary that never tires. He’s not averse to dropping out either, leaving the horns to wrestle without a referee on part of “The Unsure of Our Answers.” Together, these three players exchange frills for pointedness, complacency for candor, and come up with a performance that brings into bold focus the merits inherent in the progressive-minded affirmation that works as the disc’s title. - Derek Taylor
Beautifully recorded during their October 29, 2004 gig at The Bop Shop in Rochester, NY, this captures a trio of creative jazz heavyweights taking care of business with that classic balance between tunes and collective improv. Like some of the Tim Berne projects without a bass player, there's a soulful, open, sometimes even abstractly funky groove in the horn phrasing that can breathe better in a stripped-down format. Rob Brown's alto sax and Steve Swell's trombone play off each other with vivid, compact, logical lines. Like some classic Braxton small group jazz, it feels concise and purposeful with carefully controlled passages of high-octane blowing that organically wax and wane. As usual, Harris Eisenstadt keeps the rhythms constantly shifting and active with lots of timbral variety and detailed percussive flurries instead of the aggressive drumkit tirades more common in free jazz. In "Buoyed in Great Days" Eisenstadt wiggles around and burns under sax and trombone lines as hard as diamond and clear as glass. My favorite piece here is "The Unsure of Our Answers" with its cyclical surges of energy and sax/trombone parts that stay intricately interlocked even when they reach fire-spitting intensity. Clean Feed continues to be a critical source of quality new jazz and this is a very satisfying addition to the deeply consistent and inspired discographies of Brown and Swell. It's a great way to celebrate the thriving scene that keeps jazz alive at its grass roots with no-nonsense dedication to rigorous musicianship and passionate personal creativity. The packaging is artful and distinctive as well.
Kicking Brass: What do you get when you cross the Dirty Dozen Brass Band with Charles Mingus and Thelonious Monk then take out everything but three horns and a drum kit? You get Brassum, of course, who are playing The Taos Inn Wednesday ( Jan. 17). Weaver feels that the band is best experienced in the flesh, and to document the experience their latest CD is a live album (simply called "Brassum Live") that came about by accident. The band had recorded some shows a couple years ago, and in listening to the tapes realized they had enough material to use unedited that would capture the essence of what the four players are trying to accomplish with the quartet. |
