Basement Research: Impromptus and Other Short Works
WhyPlayJazz

Spearheaded by composer Gebhard Ullmann, Basement Research celebrates twenty-five years of existence with an album fusing contemporary jazz and classical composition methodologies. Yet while the idioms do blend on the band's eighth album, Impromptus and Other Short Works often plays like an homage to the brand of fiery jazz associated with Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, and others. Stated otherwise, Ullmann and company do integrate things such as quarter-tone improvisations and twelve-tone rows into these eleven performances (six if you count the multi-part impromptu suite as one), but the results hardly feel like rote academic exercises. The temperature never cools on the set, with a primary reason the players involved: the leader on tenor sax and bass clarinet, trombonist Steve Swell, baritone saxist Julian Argüelles, double bassist Pascal Niggenkemper, and drummer Gerald Cleaver.

The aptly titled “Gospel” opens the album with four minutes of hymn-flavoured testifying, Swell leading the bluesy charge with plunger-enhanced wail and Argüelles following with his own unrestrained outpourings. The rather Ornette-ish “29 Shoes” catches the ear with its chugging, stop-start attack; “Kleine Figuren,” on the other hand, serves up a heartfelt blues that in its relaxed flow calls to mind the way Lester Bowie and his fellow Art Ensemble of Chicago members also dug into a ballad. Ullmann's no slouch in the playing department, as shown by his freewheeling tenor on “Impromptu #1” and his registers-spanning bass clarinet solo on “Almost Twenty-Eight.” Swell's an arresting presence, too, the trombonist working all manner of inspired growls, splutter, and splat into his playing; see, for example, his bravura turn on “Lines - Impromptu #2” and his swinging contribution to “For Jim - Impromptu #6.”

Though, as mentioned, a suite is present, its six parts are dispersed and presented out of sequence, and consequently the pieces register more as stand-alones than as a cumulative entity. A structural approach is discernible in some of the improvisations, with an initial section featuring one or two players organically blossoming into a full band performance. That's not always the case, however: unison melodies are voiced from the outset of “Sticks - Impromptu #4,” with breaks granting Cleaver multiple moments in the spotlight. It's worth noting that the distance between the impromptus and the presumably more formally scripted pieces is smaller than one might expect, whatever differences between them downplayed when the latter feel spontaneous and free.

March 2019