emit reviews



Pop Matters
Jazz today is international music, and this manic quartet combines frantic klezmer with punk energy under a jazz umbrella. Chris Speed is a clarinetist and tenor sax player, and his name suits him. Paired with Vietnamese-American trumpeter Cuong Vu, the themes are lickety-split exciting. The rhythm section pairs a rumbling electric bassist (Skuli Sverrisson, from Iceland) with the impossibly exciting drummer Jim Black, who plays closer to hardcore than any drummer I know, yet retains a kind of schizoid subtlety. The total sound of the band is extremely dynamic, as if you were in attendance at some kind of mad, outer space, gypsy wedding. As good or better than a bunch of great records by the dean of NY's downtown scene, John Zorn, and a good sample of the kind of work you might hear south of Houston in latest hip basement club, Speed's work remains accessibly intimate too.
-Will Layman

 

Signal To Noise
There's a certain loneliness at the center of the sound of a lot of musicians from the northwest U.S, that is the aural equivalent to the haunted, wary films of David Lynch (himself from the region). I hear that loneliness in Chris Speed's tenor saxophone and it keeps me coming back for more. There's an implied turbulence below his well made surfaces that is immediately compelling, in much the same way as he yearning and pleading that underlay Coltrane's brilliant sound. This turbulence contrasts beautifully with his Seattle homeboy Cuong Vu's ice-blue brightness. Those two are in the front line of Speed's yeah No band, one of the more interesting working units out there. With Speed's longtime drummer (and fellow Seattleite) Jim Black and Skuli Sverrisson, the undisputed champion of the Icelandic seven-string bass, this quartet has poked around the repertoire finding useful sounds and adding them to their arsenal. As you might expect with Speed, there's a lot of Balkan music here (like the terrific, pulsating syrto of "Kosmia" and the smoldering, winding "tsiftetelli,"). But the measure of Speed's maturity is the extent to which he can integrate these disparate elements into a style, and there are encouraging signs of that here. Witness the chilly, "Live Evil" sounds of "Waltzing" wherein Speed's Northwestness manifests itself beautifully. Then there is the computerized walking bass line of "Tangents" over which Speed and Cuong Vu layer an oblique out-of-bop head while Black's brushes shudder underneath. "Suggestible" starts slowly and builds to a quick 14 (I think), with Cuong Vu blowing strings of sapphire-toned notes and Speed picks up the clarinet over spastic drumming by Black. The opening cut "Constance and Georgia," is perhaps the most complete evidence of the direction Speed is working toward. It opens with a lilting melody filled with Frisellesque Americana over a rockish beat (Constance?) alternating with a samba in 10 (Georgia, perhaps?) and a Balkan turnaround. There's a brief free section before the opening melody returns. When Speed and his gifted cohorts can smoothly negotiate the borders between these styles, they will have arrived at a territory all their own. Until then, though, following this band and its thoughtful, probing leader will be a journey I want to be on.
- John Chacona

 

CDNOW
If there was an artist to flout the cliché that avant-garde jazz had to sound ugly, it's saxophonist-clarinetist Chris Speed. With Emit, the progressive reedman-composer envisions beguiling, often improvisational music with his quartet Yeah NO, which includes trumpeter Cuong Vu, bassist Skuli Sverrisson, and drummer Jim Black. With "Constance and Georgia," a bright, streamlined melody loses its rhythm, but continues as an engaging four-way group improvisation. Similarly, the glorious melody of "Kosmia" is interspersed with rhythmic entanglements, before returning to its infectious theme, and the lovely, yearning tonalities of "Transporter" weave delightfully consonant harmonies amid its free-styled format. The harmonic orientation of the Middle East meets that of modern jazz with "Kompa," which is borne on the relentless groove of Sverrisson's loping bass lines and Black’s exotic percussion. Modern (or "serious") music is suggested on "Waltzing," with its deliberate, soft-toned sax and trumpet sonorities, while "Tralala" features Black switching from drums to melodica to intone its bright-hued, pleasantly flowing, melody. Emit makes abundantly clear that in the areas of ingenuity and musicianship, more avant-garde jazz musicians should get themselves up to Speed.
- Drew Wheeler

 

The Wire
Emit features Speed's quartet Yeah No at work. Infectious melodies, effective harmonies and tricky rhythms are the norm, as Speed's reeds, Jim Blacks agitated drums, Skuli Sverrisson's buoyant bass and Cuong Vu's trumpet cross idiomatic boundaries with reckless abandon. The music's jazz coordinates extend back to bebop, but also allude comfortably to a variety of folk traditions. There's even a brooding ambient soundscape called "Waltzing". The album may be stylistically eclectic, but the palpable commitment of the playing makes this a coherent and extremely effective unit, poised between drummer Black’s
Restless exuberance and the trumpeter’s self-possessed concentration.

 

All About Jazz
With his fourth solo CD, saxophonist/clarinetist Chris Speed continues his distinct assault on modern jazz as Emit may in fact represent the artist’s finest achievement as a leader thus far. Along with three of his longtime band mates from the peppery Balkan based band, “Pachora”, Speed and trumpeter Cuong Vu make for an auspicious front line horn section in concert with the all world rhythmic pairing of bassist Skuli Sverrisson and drummer Jim Black.
Basically there’s not one track to be found that might hint at anything resembling filler material. The band cross pollinates Middle Eastern themes with a Caribbean vibe on the fervent opener, titled “Constance and Georgia” where Speed and Vu render perky lines and sweet melodies amid fluctuating rhythms, flirtatious call and response dialogue and jovial deconstruction of the primary motif. Black and Sverrisson surge onward with the intensity of a freight train on “Suggestible” as the soloist’s combine ballsy improv with intriguing melodies while Speed, performing on clarinet, rides atop the often maniacal pulse and Sverrisson’s limber lines. Whereas, on “Tangents”, Jim Black demonstrates yet again why he is one of the finest drummers in jazz, evidenced by his polyrhythmic onslaughts and ability to maintain the tempo without losing a beat. On this piece, the band provides polychromatic vistas, as the lead soloists
render airy yet complex unison choruses in conjunction with a rhythm section who seem hell bent on ripping the walls apart. Here, raw power attains a fruitful coexistence with innocence and beauty!
- Glenn Astarita

 

Jazz Weekly
Right away this music sounds different. What is it, you wonder. Even the title of the track, Constance and Georgia, causes curiosity of origin, as does the melody and rhythm. Its not bossa nova, its not a folksong from Brittany, but it is catchy and it is interesting, with detailed quartet interplay using lots of space. Suggestible Sverrisson coming up with a driving bass riff, delicately engineered (by this I mean no boom-box overload), with Vu's beautiful trumpet solo riding on top of it, Speeds clarinet soon weaving a dance with the trumpet, then the group paraphrasing the melody over Blacks witty drum. Black has this timing which never plays time, but manipulates it, as you can hear for the lead-in to the next tune he slow-marches with Sverrisson. This tune, Berançe, features a delightfully off-kilter Speed tenor, playing what others would make a multiphonic steam-valve, but Speed keeps it in rein, making the tension that much tighter.
It is the attention to detail, rather, instinct for it that makes this quartet so savory. Tangents could never be accused of being just another Ornette-Atlantic takeoff; the individual sounds are too...individual: the spit at the bottom of one of Speeds runs, Sverrisson solar-plexus timbre, Vu's
Mentally, I keep returning to that French country feel, can’t quite place why. At times I even hear Fauré or Franck sonorities, though the music is not at all classical, and those composers never used a musette. Songlines is a Canadian label, but Vancouver is far from francophone, and the session was recorded in New York.
The cover painting (a single edition print by Shaine McDonald; I'd like to know more about this artist) and design is stunning, although it is very dark and easily to overlook. The liner notes are abstract and allude as poetry does; no brag or blather, nor explanation, just a sense of privacy shared. (I know this sounds strange without reading it.) There’s not one dull track, and I recommend this highly. The names are known entities, yet this release risks falling through the cracks because it is neither mainstream, trendoid, nor a free-blow session. This is Speeds fourth Songlines disc. I haven’t heard the first two, but also recommend the third, Deviantics, with the same lineup here on Emit.
- Steven H. Koenig