Eternal Interlude (Sunnyside Records)
John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble
Released August 18, 2009
Grammy Nominee for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album 2010
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kU0CLcunIvQbiKWxctMqDoxbJlZYocu2w
About:
This really isn’t a jazz recording, nor a classical one, either. The instrumentation reminds one of the jazz big bands of old, which have long since disappeared, but this group lives in a world without classification. In effort to be fair to the eclecticism of the composer and group, Sunnyside avoids the labeling game and is proud to present the new recording from the John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble, Eternal Interlude. Hollenbeck continues to prove his extraordinary skill as composer and improviser in a number of groups, most notably the Claudia Quintet and his Large Ensemble. The composer/percussionist is comfortable using musical elements from a vast array of genres, including modern classical, jazz, and progressive rock. The effect is a completely unique sonic palette that can shimmer and float, or drive and rock. Hollenbeck’s unique compositional style makes him a highly sought composer for commissioned pieces, which all the featured pieces are. The Ensemble featuresmany luminarymembers of experimental music, including vocalist Theo Bleckmann to beautiful effect. Eternal Interlude showcases an amazing composer and group making music that is beyond classification.
Track Listing:
1. Foreign One (John Hollenbeck) 9:15
Commissioned by Scottish National Jazz Orchestra and is dedicated to composer Thelonious Monk and based on his composition “Four in One.”
2. Eternal Interlude (John Hollenbeck) 19:20
Commissioned by Gotham Wind Symphony and Sigi Feigl.
3. Guarana (John Hollenbeck) 8:36
Commissioned by University of Northern Colorado Jazz Ensemble.
4. The Cloud (John Hollenbeck) 13:09
Commissioned by Bamberg Symphony Choir and Big Band.
5. Perseverance (John Hollenbeck) 17:47
Commissioned by Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos.
6. No Boat (John Hollenbeck) 2:01
Personnel:
John Hollenbeck: drums
Ben Kono: flute, alto saxophone
Jeremy Viner: clarinet, tenor saxophone
Tony Malaby: tenor saxophone
Dan Willis: tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, flute, english horn
Bohdan Hilash: clarinet, contralto
Ellery Eskelin: tenor saxophone
Rob Hudson: trombone
Mike Christianson: trombone
Jacob Garchik: trombone
Alan Ferber: trombone
Tony Kadleck: trumpet / fluegelhorn
Jon Owens: trumpet / fluegelhorn
Dave Ballou: trumpet / fluegelhorn
Laurie Frink: trumpet / fluegelhorn
Kermit Driscoll: acoustic / electric Bass
Gary Versace: piano, organ, keyboard
Matt Moran: mallet percussion
John Ferrari: mallet percussion
Theo Bleckmann: vocals
Jc Sanford: conductor
Recorded 8 – 9 March 2009, at Avatar Studio C
Producer: John Hollenbeck
Engineer: James Farber
Review:
The music on Eternal Interlude by
drummer John Hollenbeck cannot be described in one word, but if it could that
word would be “poignant.” But of course, one word is not enough, so
in settling for two, those would be “poignant” and
“challenging.” But then two words appear so insufficient, and the
search widens and reveals, perhaps, an additional word to go with “poignant”
and “challenging,” and that word is “epic.” But then
another listen reveals that even three words do not do the record justice. And
then a sudden thought appears out of thin air, slap bang in the middle of a
spectacular, extended Hollenbeck drum solo: this musical canvas painted by John
Hollenbeck is larger than life.
The drummer uses tonal colors in limitless
permutations and combinations. The aural textures woven into the warp and weft
of its musical tapestry are hypnotic. In an all-pervasive pulse, vertical and
horizontal paths criss-cross and are only broken by the wonderfully incessant
ripple of rhythms. And from then on the music evolves in interminable circles
as instruments enter and exit the music together and separately.
Although Hollenbeck plays drums (and whistles)
he is more like a percussion colorist, with colorist being the
key word. As a composer, he plies his craft with awed reverence for the myriad
sounds available to his musical palette. How mellifluously, for instance, he
does so on “Foreign One,” as brassy growls and thin wails slide
together in magical glissandos rubbing shoulders with the chipped rhythmic
humming and melodic rim-shot rattling punctuated by staccato rolls. This
fluidity is often happily disturbed and broken by polytonal dissonances from
piano and melodic percussion. There is manic and Thelonious Monkish, aerial and subterranean soloing with tenor sax,
as piano and ensemble escort this music to an inevitable crescendo.
Percussion—drums and hammered chords on piano—shatter the peace in a dramatic
conclusion.
The title track is a classical lament. Almost a
third of the piece features a probing attack—in a noirish metaphor, the
proverbial hour before the dawn, so to speak. The dark nature of this
bolero-like section of the piece is only tempered by the bright triplets and
trills vamped on Gary Versace darting
gallops in the piano’s upper register. Haunting voices enter and exit like
smokey clouds. Hollenbeck trips in and out of the ensemble too, lifting the
music up and down to barely a whisper. When the chorus returns the piano and
melodic percussion introduce a decidedly brighter, redemptive harmony into the
seemingly salvific endgame of the piece.
Hollenbeck appears to be a metaphysical musician and he proves that it is possible to use tone, color and texture to compose and mirror his depth of thought. “Eternal Interlude” and several other pieces on the record give ample evidence. On “Guarana,” the seemingly loose harmonic flood of woodwinds and brass are hung on the symmetrical elements of voice and other instruments. Then a tantalizing vamp on piano and drums draw the trombone out of its reverie and in a hush, a still-swinging “Guarana” ends as quietly as it began. On the piano, it is like restless keys, ebony and ivory, entered into a deep resonant sleep.
“The Cloud” is a
heavily layered piece, and if followed as a narrative, tells a story, through
the sound of a dense set-up by the ensemble, like a tableau featuring the
interaction between an initiate and a learned master. The Zen-like flow of this
elegant music spirals around the Latin “Donna Nobis Pacem,” (grant us
peace) and also makes reference to a fragment from the ancient Sanskrit chant
“Om Namah Shivaiya” (also a prayer in times of turbulence).
The musical arrangement of “Perseverance,” on the other hand,
contrasts the timbral values of woodwinds—clarinets exploring the deep and
labyrinthine stairwells of numerous registers. Up and down the notes progress,
while Hollenbeck pecks and prods, rolls and rumbles across his drums. Here the
percussionist covers the entire spectral topography of his kit and in doing so
he creates as incessant dynamic, dictated by the varying tension of the skins
of various drums. It seems this will never stop until the percussionist lures
all the other instruments into a gratifying crescendo and into the song’s
denouement.
By the time the 12-tone piece, “No Boat,” brings the set to a
dramatic close, another thought assaults the senses. Can this be a John
Hollenbeck homage to literary epics such as Gilgamesh? Or is it
just his way of stringing together apparently disparate pieces into his own
epic description of humanity’s pilgrim journey? Now that too is worth a thought
and a careful listen.
Raul da Gama Rose (All About Jazz)