Boston-based
saxophonist/composer Ken Field has drawn deeply from the wellspring of the New
Orleans brass band tradition since forming his Revolutionary Snake Ensemble in
1990. Using the boisterous rhythms of that tradition as a launching pad for
unbridled improvisations on both original and traditional material, the band
has emerged as a singular force in the music. Their third CD, Live Snakes, set
for March 11 release by Accurate Records, captures their distinctive sound in
all its expressive glory.
Recorded
in 2011 and 2013 in Boston, Brooklyn, and Manhattan, Live Snakes documents four
editions of the highly mutable ensemble, with two sonically inventive remixes
by Field thrown in for good measure. Adding to the deep pool of Boston talent
that has sustained the RSE for more than two decades, Live Snakes features an extended
family of players, including New York masters Matt Darriau (tenor sax and
flute), Josh Roseman (trombone), and Kenny Wollesen (drums and percussion), and
New Orleans tenor saxophone great Charles Neville.
A good
deal of Live Snakes' emotional punch stems from the fact that Field's wife, the
renowned filmmaker and animator Karen Aqua who often collaborated with the RSE,
lost her battle against cancer just one week after the album's earliest session
in 2011.
"The
whole New Orleans concept of a jazz funeral, where it's very somber and moving
at the beginning and then you break into celebratory uptempo grooves
afterwards, really helped shape this album," Field says. "After
playing in churches and at Karen's memorial it really brought home again that
that's the script for how music should be. You're mourning and you're
celebrating. The music encompasses these really conflicting emotions, joy and
sadness at the same time."
The
heart of Live Snakes is the aching dirge "For Karen," a stunning
group improvisation from the 2011 session at Brooklyn's 58 Northsix Media Labs.
The lamentation segues into a lugubrious rendition of the spiritual "I'll
Fly Away" recorded by a full eight-piece band two years later at Cambridge's
Regattabar, a performance that ends uptempo as a high-stepping celebration. The
entire album's sequencing follows this kind of emotional logic, imbuing Live
Snakes with the feel of a cathartic odyssey.
Marked
by bawdy humor, seat-of-the-pants arrangements, and a love of unabashedly
beautiful melodies, the band is equally effective interpreting hymns, like
"Rock of Ages," and jazz standards, such as "Caravan." Field
closes the album with an atmospheric remix of "Cassandra 4," a tune
originally commissioned by Bridgeman/Packer Dance, and a newly constructed
piece "Breakdown Part One" that can best be described as Miles Runs
the Voodoo Down to Basin Street. In a typically Fieldian move, he turns a live
album into an opportunity for further investigation into form and texture.
"I'm
a firm believer in experimentation: I don't like doing the same thing twice or
repeating what other people have done," Field says. "But at the same
time I like the idea of maintaining some continuity with what listeners expect,
so when we're rhythmically complex sometimes we'll be harmonically simpler. I
play a melodic instrument, so we're always going to be focusing on melodically
based music."
The
band's acclaimed debut album, 2003's Year of the Snake (Innova Recordings),
brought national attention. The following year the RSE began playing at Mardi
Gras and has regularly marched with the all-women Krewe of Muses, an experience
that "legitimized the band to me," Field says.
With its
second album, 2008's Forked Tongue (Cuneiform), the RSE continued to expand its
already far-flung repertoire, ranging from hymns and spirituals to traditional
New Orleans parade anthems and tunes by everyone from Billy Idol to Ornette
Coleman.
Ken Field In addition to his work with RSE,
Ken Field (left) continues to perform and record with Birdsongs of Mesozoic, a
new music/chamber rock ensemble that spun off from the storied band Mission of
Burma. He also maintains a busy solo career as a player and composer with five
solo releases, including Subterranea (O.O. Discs), Pictures of Motion (sFz),
Tokyo in F (Sublingual), Under the Skin (Innova), and Sensorium: Music for
Dance & Film (Innova). Field has written scores for animation, film, modern
dance, and television, including music for Sesame Street.
Founded
in 1990 as an improvisational horn and percussion group for a pagan women's
ritual celebration and evolving for more than 20 years to its present-day
incarnation as costumed funk/street beat improvisational brass band, the
Revolutionary Snake Ensemble has continued to captivate audiences. The RSE was
nominated as Jazz Act of the Year in the New England Music Awards (winners to
be announced 2/22) and will be marking the release of Live Snakes with a 3/4
performance at the Regattabar in Cambridge, MA. Also scheduled is a 3/22
appearance at Barbes in Brooklyn, as well as a return engagement at the Kennedy
Center in Washington, DC on 3/23.
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