Brit reedman Paul Dunmall came to New York a couple of years ago for the Vision Festival and ended up making a record with freeform guitarist Edward Ricart. Inserted on the fly into Ricart’s guitar/trumpet (Herb Robertson) led quartet, Chamaeleon is a group improv effort that possesses “coherency that’s uncommon for free jazz and an energy that’s undeniable.”
The day after that recording, Dunmall went over to the studio of the Chamaeleon quintet’s drummer, Andrew Barker, and the two carried forward the energy and daring of the prior day, except that it’s compacted into a duo, sometimes trio, package. Luddite — released November 11, 2014 from Ricart’s New Atlantis Records — might be even more informal than the music from the day before, but that also made it even more instinctual. We also get a better idea of just how good Baker and Dunmall are. They’re damned good.
Tim Dahl, of the noise-rock band Child Abuse, joins the two on acoustic bass for half of the half dozen performances, all evidently conjured up without forethought, just momentum. Perhaps one the largest challenges for any freeform jazz performer is to forget what they learned in their development and just play from the gut, coming up with fresh ideas and licks not just occasionally but all of the time. Barker and Dunmall meet this challenge.
The titular track, which is sans Dahl, commences with Dunmall straining to get notes out, contorting his sax such that it makes sounds so alien that could have mistaken for electronically generated ones. Some feedback is audible and the sax might have hooked up to a wah-wah pedal, but the delirious elocutions are all Dunmall. Barker lightly raps rapidly around his kit, also wringing uncommon sounds from his instrument. He doesn’t go full bore at every opportunity, he’s patient and waits from cues from the saxophonist to strike. “Pity Party” is just as unrepentant about its unrestrained frolics. Barker’s rolling drums support the trills of Dunmall, who keeps adding notes until it becomes a sheet storm of sound. By the time he complete his windup, the extrasensory rapport between them becomes an updated version of Interstellar Space.
Dahl joins for “Shame Game,” tugging away at the high end while Dunmall leads another rambunctious song. Barker occupies a gray space between rhythm and free and that sax gets so sinewy, it takes the lungs of Peter Brötzmann to do that (Dunmall’s ample lungs also power “Flecks”). “Spells” is not so much a song as it’s a breathing organism: a darkly conveyed bowed bass intro, kicks things off and soon afterwards, Barker joins in with jumbled, light and rangy utilization of his kit. Dunmall is making up the harmony as he goes along, and he with Barker got a telepathy thing going as Dahl puts the bow away and leaves taut tracks.
“Champion” begins the album, but is also it’s least characteristic track; Dunmall replaces his tenor sax for a bass clarinet for this great expanse of arid soundscape, giving Barker much opportunity to brandish all the wrinkles regularly found in his playing without much fanfare.
Paul Dunmall and Andrew Barker, with an assist from Tim Dahl, make the most of Dunmall’s transatlantic visit. The impromptu nature of this collaboration that made Luddite possible also makes it great.
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