As a follow-up to 2017's
acclaimed Ballet: The Music of Michael Gibbs, Seattle-based trumpeter Cuong Vu
joins forces once again with guitar great Bill Frisell, bassist Luke Bergman
and drummer Ted Poor on the boundary-pushing quartet outing for
RareNoiseRecords, Change in the Air. With all the members of the quartet
contributing compositions, this one finds the four participants on equal
footing on ten adventurous originals. From Poor's dreamy, noirish opener
"All That's Left of Me Is You" and his lonesome echo-laden waltz
"Alive" to Bergman's dynamic "Must Concentrate," Frisell's
delicate "Look, Listen" and his beguiling heartland melody "Long
Ago" and Vu's angular "Round and Round" and his edgy and
electrified "March of the Owl and the Bat," these four stellar
musicians are truly on one accord and dealing with a rare level of nuance and
depth of communication on Change in the Air.
"It was a team effort," said Vu. "The only real
leader thing that I did was make sure everyone had the studio dates in their
calendars, set up rehearsals, made sure they knew where the studio was; more
like secretarial work, is what I did. My only intention was that we should all
bring in tunes to make it as collective as we could. This collection of people
allowed me to let go and trust, and I knew that we all just wanted to make the
best music that we could together." Poor added that the team effort
developed quite naturally. "Cuong invited us all to contribute and I'm
very pleased with how the band was able to sincerely welcome such a broad range
of compositions into the fold. We needed repertoire and I think everyone felt
comfortable and confident bringing in their own music. At that point we had played
a lot of music together and I for one felt as though we were well on our way to
developing a clear band sound and identity."
Vu commented on the various compositional qualities that his
three band mates brought to the table on Change in the Air. "Bill's
writing, like his playing, at first glance is seemingly simplistic though
always full of character. And when you patiently zoom in you find that it's
filled with multi-layered info that is cohesively bonded. His pieces can be
played on any collection of instruments and arranged in any way, and the truth
of what he intended will come through as the listener will find it as deeply
moving as it is beautiful. Luke's writing is smart, clever, ironic, funny and
feels inevitable. He comes from having seriously investigated a wide and
eclectic range of music but he's rooted in a rock band-based type of viewpoint.
I think it all comes out in the music that he writes. And Ted is one of these
guys who sounds like the source music for whatever genre he plays, and he
sounds like a wise, experienced elder playing it. What I find impressive is in
how he's able to get deep into whatever type of music and so quickly absorb it.
He's like a jack-of-all-trades type of drummer because of that ability, along
with the technical freedom to execute it all. I'm not surprised that his
writing reflects all that. The three tunes that he brought to the table are so
different from each other and they all feel extremely rooted and focused in the
specific context that each inhabits."
Regarding his three stylistically wide-ranging compositions
on Change in the Air, Poor offered: "I liked the idea of trying to writing
something that could pose as an old standard found in an archive somewhere, and
that's how I came up with 'All That's Left of Me Is You.' The title is a
potential lyric for the final melodic phrase of the song. While the song does
not in fact have lyrics I wanted us to play it as if we were playing an
instrumental version of a standard song like 'Embraceable You' or 'If You Could
See Me Now.' For 'Lately' I just had the sound of Cuong and Bill playing the
melody and chords vividly in my ears, and I wrote it in one sitting not long
before our recording session. 'Alive' was written back in 2012 for a gig I had
in New York with Mark Turner and Pete Rende. I have enjoyed playing that tune
with a number of different bands but until now it hasn't been recorded. We
needed a few tunes with intensity and tempo to balance the set and 'Alive' felt
like an obvious choice."
Poor's sublime brushwork is beautifully showcased on
"All That's Left of Me Is You," "Lately" and particularly
on the rubato closer "Far From Here," which bears the stamp of the
late drumming great and longtime Frisell collaborator Paul Motian. "Paul
Motian is a hero of mine," said Poor. "Seeing him at the Village
Vanguard with Frisell or with his own bands is something I'll never forget. His
playing was riveting, provocative and pure music. Regarding brushwork, he's
definitely one of my favorite drummers, along with Andrew Cyrille, Elvin Jones
and Philly Joe Jones (his brush playing on 'Young and Foolish' from Everybody
Digs Bill Evans comes to mind). All of those great players are able to extract
infinitely nuanced sound and a powerful specificity of mood and feel. Brushes
are exciting for me because they allow you to create sustain and offer such a
wide range of attack, from staccato to a legato bloom of sound that has no
attack at all."
Frisell, who moved from New York to Seattle in 1988 and
remained there for 30 years before returning to the Big Apple, says the
chemistry for this particular quartet began in the Emerald City. "I was
lucky to have first met Luke Bergman and over the years we have been playing
more and more in all kinds of different situations together. It's been awesome
connecting with him. Then as soon as Ted moved to Seattle we started playing a
lot together too, just getting together at his house and playing tunes. It was
the same with Cuong. As soon as he came to Seattle we started playing together.
So it was great to have someone to be able to get together with and practice
together and just play music together. That happened with all those guys
separately and then eventually the four of us got together as a quartet. Cuong
has been such an incredible inspiration-energizer for music in Seattle. Luke
and Ted too. They all make things happen."
While the quartet tackled the music of composer-arranger and
Frisell's mentor Michael Gibbs on its first RareNoise record together, they
decided to stick strictly with originals on Change in the Air. Vu's trumpet
work is brilliant throughout. Whether its his extraordinary lyricism on
Frisell's "Look, Listen" and Poor's dreamy jazz ballad "All
That's Left of Me Is You," his plaintive call on Poor's melancholy
"Lately" or his staccato bursts and skronking statements on his own
"March of the Owl and the Bat," his playing is marked by bold
instincts and nuanced expression. Poor cited one possible influence on Vu's
"March of the Owl and the Bat": "Cuong has written a number of
pieces over the years that are based on driving, angular syncopated rhythms. We
are both huge fans of the Swedish heavy metal band Meshuggah and their rhythmic
language informs our approach significantly. We worked off of a chart in the
studio and the biggest challenge was to internalize the rhythms and meters and
make them feel good. From there the embellishment and shaping of the tune
flowed naturally."
Frisell offers authoritative solos and beautiful, pianistic
accompaniment to the fabric of these ten tunes on Change in the Air. "I'm
just trying to listen and do the right thing," he said. "I'm a huge
fan of master accompanists like Hank Jones, John Lewis, Tommy Flanagan, Richie
Powell, Horace Silver...all guys that are working from the inside out. I for
sure love hearing someone play a great solo but much more than that what really
gets me off is trying to figure out what's going on with the whole band and how
all the pieces fit together. When I listen to Miles' band with Herbie Hancock,
Ron Carter, Tony Williams and Wayne Shorter....man! Every note from all of them
all the time is astounding and essential. The magic is in how they play
together."
Vu also commented on his uncanny chemistry with Frisell,
which is especially apparent in their intimate interactions on Frisell's
chamber-like "Look, Listen" and the sparse closer, "Far From
Here": "It's pretty much a necessity for me to be surrounded by
deeply empathetic listeners whose main priority is to serve the music being
created in each instance. And it takes a long time to find the right people
who'll create the right mixture together. I really do think that all three of
us (Luke, Ted, and I) have a natural strength in 'empathic listening' - making
the others sound better while stating your own opinion with an openness to all
possibilities in the immediate moments. And I do really think that we're pretty
decent at that approach. But add Bill to
the mix...that's his genius! He makes everybody that he's ever played with
sound better and always puts them in a different light. It helps that I'm in
that same zone of thinking, but it's really about Bill making it happen."
Frisell also commented on the source of the quartet's
remarkable chemistry: "You play with someone for the first time and you
feel something that makes you want to come back for more. And I think the key
to that is pretty simple. We listen. The best things happen when everyone's
attention is focused on everyone else around them ...away from
themselves."
Regarding the source of the album's title, Vu pointed to the
state of world affairs today as a kind of dark undercurrent to Change in the
Air. "I've never felt so much anxiety about the future on so many levels -
environmentally, politically and especially with the 'leadership' in our
country - than I do now," he said. "In terms of what's going on and
how we've gotten to this place, it feels overwhelmingly ominous, dangerous and
as if it's only the beginning of what will come. I'm scared but, hopefully,
just paranoid."
Born on September 19, 1969 in Saigon, Vietnam's largest
city, Vu moved with his family to Seattle when he was six years old. He picked
up trumpet at age 11 and later received a scholarship to attend the New England
Conservatory of Music in Boston. After moving the New York City in 1994, he
formed the group Ragged Jack with keyboardist Jamie Saft, saxophonist Andrew
D'Angelo and drummer Jim Black in 1997. During his time in New York, Vu worked
with Laurie Anderson, David Bowie, Gerry Hemingway, Myra Melford, Bobby
Previte, Dave Douglas and more. He appeared on Pat Metheny's Grammy-winning
albums Speaking of Now (2002) and The Way Up (2005). Vu returned to Seattle in
2007 to teach at the University of Washington, where he is currently a full
professor.
TRACKS
1. All That's Left Of Me Is You
2. Alive
3. Look, Listen
4. Must Concentrate
5. Lately
6. Round And Round
7. March Of The Owl And The Bat
8. Round And Round (Back Around)
9. Long Ago
10. Far From Here
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