For The Moment

Album review

Composer and ace trumpeter Paul Brody and his fine group Sadawi have established their wonderfully eclectic trademark sound with two previous outings on Tzadik -- 2002's Kabbalah Dream and 2004's Beyond Babylon. In the interim he's released a pair of wild avant klezmer platters (South Klezmer Suite and Klezmer Stories) on Laika and one (Sadawi, Minsker, Kapelye) on Ferment. The last three were all issued in 2006! This new set is even more adventurous than anything the band has issued previously. While using klezmer as a base, Brody is strident in his aims to create a new place for klezmer in the pantheon of music, both popular and otherwise. Previously employing everything from digital and analog dub to Appalachian mountain music in his approaches to reestablish the music's integral harmonic, lyric, and improvisational palette, Brody digs deeper into jazz, classical, and rock this time out. Beginning with the mournful intro to "Warsaw," which passes for a Yiddish folk tune, he and guitarist Brandon Seabrook waste no time getting to the call-and-response notions of klezmer. Here, Yiddish party music and heavy metal guitar are arranged inside a Sephardic theme, with breakbeats by Eric Rosenthal, who adds a slightly funky edge to his pulse. The solo by Brody is strictly on the composition's theme, but Seabrook goes off into Slayer territory. Meanwhile, bassist Martin Lillich and clarinetist Christian Dawid blend the stew -- in the latter case in the twinned front-line melody with Brody, and in the former holding the drummer and guitarist in check. The bassline keeps a reggae touch throughout "Too Low," but there are skittering double breaks by Rosenthal -- and the gorgeous contrapuntal harmonic theme is straight from the tradition, as the three front-line players assert themselves immediately. There are some dubby sound effects as Seabrook engages Lillich, but they never hold sway over the composition's unique, mournful call-and-response playing between brass and woodwind -- even when the feedback and electronic sounds threaten to overcome the mix. Killer!
"Bartoki" begins as -- you guessed it -- an exercise in counterpoint between brass and woodwind, gradually swung out from the drum kit to charge full-on into a jazzed-out reading of a couple of familiar Bartók themes dressed in power chords and riffs from Seabrook, distorted basslines, and Brody getting near the edge of free jazz in the chorus (and even some Don Ellis in the bridge). This is how it goes throughout: back and forth, integrating klezmer (itself over 100 years old) with popular musics -- and not so popular ones -- past and present, firmly planted in the future while extending the tradition and not only keeping it lively, but alive and growing. "Serendipity" begins with a gorgeous clarinet solo but eventually becomes, as the band enters (with Seabrook on banjo), the root thematic ground for the dubbed-up sound shards and electric guitar-striated rockist jam "Sit Down." Here, jazz from the early '30s, klez, and modal swing are interpolated and communicated back and forth. The lines Brody writes are gorgeous. His sense of harmony and time and the tight dimensions he employs actually result in pushing his compositions out into the world so they can be appreciated by virtually anyone. There are some guest appearances on this set: label boss John Zorn and his alto make the scene on the title cut, as does new klezmer kingpin Frank London. It's a boiler and a finger-popper, done to a double-timed drumbeat and breaking out into a wild celebration of klez that Dave Tarras and his teacher Naftule Brandwein would celebrate -- especially those rhythms, which are jaunty, tough, and in your face. Zorn solos to the outside eventually, but never entirely leaves the melodic framework of the tune. The force and harmonic ferocity of this music rein him in. This cut is the orgiastic celebration on the album -- though all of it is fun while being wonderfully complex music compositionally. Ultimately, as an album, For the Moment takes you for a wild and adventurous ride, always bringing you back to the root of the historical origin while enveloping you in its trans-modern integration not only of styles, but of sounds, nuances, colors, and textures.

© Thom Jurek /TiVo