photos: Roypowell.net
The British expat residing in Oslo Roy Powell is a Hammond B-3 specialist who prefers not to get stuck in tradition. “I love all the organ players who have refined the instrument and kept it relevant to successive generations,” he relates, listing Sam Yahel and Larry Goldings as examples. We heard Powell puts his words into action recently on a couple of Lorenzo Feliciati-led projects, Frequent Flyer and Shizaru, by the dangerous fusion quartet Naked Truth.
Powell has led a couple of ensembles of his own, and recently, he sought to expand the possibilities offered up by the venerable organ/guitar/drums trio by assembling one with likewise forward-thinking musicians from Norway, guitarist Jacob Young (Manu Katché, Mathias Eick) and drummer Jarle Vespestad (Tord Gustavsen Trio, Supersilent, Farmers Market).
What we’re discussing here is officially the debut album by “InterStatic,” but Powell, Young and Vespestad’s first album together Anthem released last year under their last names. That outing also sought out territory outside the conventional organ-guitar-drums music, finding a spot in the cerberal, modern jazz not far from where the John Abercrombie 90’s trio’s with Dan Wall and Adam Nussbaum staked out a claim. But for the second album, they didn’t want to play the same music and the change was sufficiently radical enough to justify a whole new name for the three: InterStatic.
InterStatic, both the band and the album, does have one thing in common with Anthem: it looks largely to ECM recordings for inspiration. But instead of drawing from Abercrombie’s advanced modalisms and straight-jazz exercises, the template is now the European inclined jazz-rock of vintage Terje Rypdal. That isn’t to say that you can put the record side by side with, say, Rypdal’s Odyssey and call them two of a kind, but the feel is much the same. There’s the same, wide open, uncluttered compositions that provide perfect launching pads for extended, fully articulated individual expressions and an emphasis on group improvisations. This remains thinking man’s rock-jazz, but no one seems to be hurting their brains to render it.
Aside from the opening “Stills,” a very melodic, almost anthemic song, the music on this album is built from the ground up: Vespestad forms the foundation over which Powell paints with broad brush strokes, and Young completes the picture by dotting the landscape with well placed notes, and letting his instinct for tone and space take over. That’s particularly true for songs such as “First Vision” (video of live performance below) and “InterStatic,” the song, both of which are models of group symmetry.
Diversions from that script do occur, but never in such a disruptive way to disturb the flow of the record. Young is real adept for finding effects that mesh well with Powell’s B-3, finding a squonky, amped up tone on “Washed Up” and a real swampy sound on the short improv “Americana.” He deploys an acoustic guitar for the low key “Water Music,” and it makes me wonder why an acoustic guitar isn’t paired with an organ more.
The most raucous cut comes on “The Elverum Incident” (video of live performance below), which is an obvious hat-tip to the early Tony Williams’ Lifetime band with Williams, McLaughlin and Young (Larry, that is). Even here, no one is trying too hard to mimic their inspirations; Powell remains in a more tactful mood than Larry Young would, and Jacob Young is playing with incisiveness, but with less notes. Lamentably, the song fades out as soon as Powell really gets going.
If you’re tired of listening to the same old Jimmy Smith/Charles Earland organ type combos and prefer more leanness, less grease and a more modern taken on the tried-and-true format, InterStatic offers the fresh take you’re looking for. InterStatic is out today, courtesy of Rare Noise Records.
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