2.4 M pdf

All reviews copyright of the respective publications.

The Respect Sextet adds just enough swing and easy bop that by the time its free-form explorations and freak-out hit, it's way too late to turn back. But then the band throws in unison runs and harmonies amidst the dissonant brass laughter to prove there actually is a plan.

On its way-cool new Respect In You, Respect takes the listener on a trip, but the map's on fire --- and so is the band.

It's hard bop. It swings. It challenges and instigates. It delightfully confounds. This is world-class American jazz at its finest and freest. It's pure truth. Respect the truth.

This group’s been around since 2001, and they already have several discs to their credit- a couple CD-Rs, a mini-CD of a twenty-minute version of Sun Ra’s “Call to All Demons,” and one full-length CD, The Full Respect. They have great chops and a great sense of humor, and they seem to play just about everything. (Robert Iannopollo calls them a “Jazzswinglatinbopbalkanfreeimprov band,” but if anything that sells them short.) The Full Respect has supercharged grooves peppered Art Ensemble-style with children’s toys, game-pieces, Dave Douglasy accordion-and-trumpet, a Charlie Parker/Bill Evans mashup, pitch-perfect Ellingtonia, klezmer, a TV commercial, a mangled trumpet rag (a joke at Wynton Marsalis’ expense?). It’s a fun and mightily impressive disc, even if it’s a little too close to the post-Zorn channel-flipping aesthetic.

Respect in You, recorded at a live gig from the band’s hometown of Rochester, NY, has all its predecessor’s virtues, but it’s less of a crazyquilt. It’s still witty and intelligent music, shot through with an allusive let’s-throw-this-in-the-pot sensibility, but there’s much less of an ironic distance: they seem in the grip of this music, and convey that sense of pressure to the listener too. They do a cover of Misha Mengelberg’s “Hypochrismutreefuzz” and stitch other Mengelberg themes into the rest of the album; perhaps what they’ve learned from Misha (or from another of their heroes, Sun Ra) is how to pry jazz apart--to make it sound layered rather than seamless, an unstable compound of elements that can each recede or approach, become sharper or fray at the edges. Their reading of Fred Anderson’s “3 on 2” is a case in point. Emerging from a nebula of radio fuzz, it homes in on a swirling Coltrane-derived groove. The band’s delivery is authentically ecstatic: it’s as thrilling an opening to an album as any I’ve heard in the past year, all fifteen minutes of it. But the performance also makes use of weaving in-and-out shifts of texture and of emphasis within the ensemble, as a way of gaining and readjusting their (and our) perspective on this kind of ecstatic intensity. (Call it “Thirteen Ways of Looking at Fred Anderson.”) Sometimes this multiperspectivism is almost schematic: “Postal (a.k.a. PB&J),” for instance, sets two kinds of blues in dialogue, a “Blues for Alice” swinger and a “Black and Tan Fantasy” funeral march. It’s a clever idea- Bird talking back to Ellington- but it’s a lot more than that, not least because right in the middle of the piece there’s a black-hole collapse, all the bright bebop virtuosity squeezed dry until it’s no more than an ominous thrumming.

There’s much more that could be said- about the superb work of the individual players (saxophonist Josh Rutner, trombonist James Hirschfield, trumpeter Eli Asher, pianist/accordionist Red Wierenga, bassist Matt Clohesy, drummer Ted Poor); about the whimsical details and quotes that take multiple listens to ferret out; about the deviously snowballing “Hypochrismutreefuzz”, or “Riot of Light,” which to these ears is not so much joyful as an exploration of how joy is expressed in music, from Salvation Army hymnody to Aylerian ecstasy to a whirlwind tour of Latin and Caribbean dance rhythms. But suffice it to say that Respect in You is one of this year’s outstanding new discs, providing more food for thought and pure enjoyment than just about anything I’ve heard lately. Check it out.

Last year, Exclaim!’s number one improv release was Home Speaks to the Wandering by Dead Cat Bounce. The Respect Sextet trod very much in the same musical territory featuring soulful, harmonically challenging riffing within freedom and grooves. The Sextet seem to be conversant in every shade of jazz, and create long form suites which never seem too over-analysed. The disc opens with a 15-minute version of Fred Anderson’s “3 on 2.” The first few minutes feature the band building to spiritual freedom, anchored by Anderson’s no-nonsense melody. By the time the funk hits about seven minutes into the track, it’s merely a bonus to the highly-spirited and soulful collective improv. Over the next eight minutes the band ebb and flow back into the increasingly New Orleans-informed rhythm of drummer Ted Poor. Trumpeter Eli Asher’s “Nation’s Capital” starts out as a page from the Ornette Coleman songbook, but settles into a long homemade percussion jam which recalls the go-go sound of the nation’s capital in the ’80s. The Sextet are consistently successful at teasing grooves out of textures and holding them down at low dynamics. Any one of these tracks could work in a commercial jazz radio format, because they swing hard in the tradition, but they’re always willing to other planes at any moment. It’s not music that is trying to be experimental, it just goes off… Highly recommended.

Hailing from Rochester, New York, The Respect Sextet sounds like some enthusiastic cousin of Boston's Either/Orchestra or San Francisco's Club Foot Orchestra. Here's why: Respect is, obviously, a collective endeavor, but they've refused to drop anchor in one musical spot. They open Respect in You with undersung Chicago tenor champ Fred Anderson's "3 on 2," which moves in undulations led, fittingly, by Josh Rutner's tenor. It's a bold opener, because it doesn't chug but rather sets a wavy, episodic mood. And this brings the Respect crew back toward the methodologies of Club Foot and Either/Orchestra, bands that are comfortable playing rollicking, driving tunes or atmospheric film scores. Respect isn't content to simply set moods, though. They barrel and swing through trumpeter Eli Asher's "Nation's Capital" and Rutner's "Postal," both designed to show the band's ability to push rhythms with frontal horn leadership. Asher's trumpet can fray and spatter only to fatten again in a second, and Rutner's tenor favors a warm middle that serves the band superbly. For his part, Matt Clohesy's bass is nimble in the highs and rumbly where the need for breadth is prominent. Drummer Ted Poor follows suit, snapping off snare runs with a relish that also feeds his more shadowy rhythmic pushes. In short, he and the rest of the band have a fine ear for range. They make the great pianist Misha Mengleberg's [sic] early piece, "Hypochrismutreefuzz," sound like a chamber work that's scrabbling for clarity even as it builds and builds the ear's anticipation. Then the band takes over as a unit, with pianist Ted [sic] Wierenga comping like Misha, Clohesy riffing on his hi-hat, and an aerated whiff of noise emerging from a wayward transistor radio. Often spacious, and equally often crowded with boisterous passion, Respect in You revels in some great post-free, architecturally exciting play.

Two years ago, the Abdullah Ibrahim trio's lackluster performance at the Montreal Jazz Festival put me in a very foul mood, and the evening was only saved by a chance encounter with an unheralded group at a nearby club playing energized versions of Ornette Coleman songs. Recently, while wondering a) if Dave Holland was ever going to produce anything as remotely inspired as Conference of the Birds and b) whether the world really needs a twelve-disc Vandermark 5 live set, this strangely-titled album arrived and I was similarly lifted out of my trough of despond. Instead of Ornette, Misha Mengelberg is the stylistic touchstone for The Respect Sextet; aside from a reading of his delightfully-named “Hypochristmutreefuzz” (which meanders in an engagingly madcap manner before finally getting around to the theme just before the end), they have a habit of throwing in snippets of other Misha songs throughout the rest of the album, as if New Dutch Swing had been grafted and transplanted into foreign soil in an unlikely location – a club in Rochester, New York. But these guys are far more than an ICP cover band: their influences are wide-ranging. The disc starts off with Fred Anderson’s “3 on 2”, and if Josh Rutner doesn’t emulate Fred’s tenor riffs, he has a similarly brawny tone. The group pounds a series of grooves into submission Anderson-style, with trumpeter Eli Asher and trombonist James Hirschfeld getting in their licks while pianist/accordionist Red Wierenga (somewhat buried in the mix) and drummer Ted Poor team up with guest bassist Matt Clohesy to propel the horns through the compositional twists and turns. “Postal (a.k.a. PB&J)” starts as an upbeat Mingus-like blues with fluid tenor sax over a cooking rhythm section that downshifts to a trombone-heavy New Orleans funeral march. As the dirge comes to a halt, Rutner deftly interjects a couple of Mengelberg quotes (a brief “Die Berge Schuetzen Die Heimat” followed by “Rollo II”, for you Mishaphiles), Clohesy lays down a throbbing pulse under Poor’s crisp cymbal work and the band returns to the initial theme. Please don’t take my word for how good this is: go to www.respectsextet.com and sample their generous mp3 offerings, sign the guest book and insist they get their earlier CDRs back in print.

Based on this first official release, the Rochester, NY-based Respect Sextet is one of those hometown secrets that deserve wider exposure. The group of Eastman School of Music grads honed their chops and collective approach to improvisation at a weekly gig at a local coffee bar, and the results are amply displayed. In just under an hour, they squeeze in eighteen tunes that jump from skewed swing to whacked-out rags to blues stomps to free improv to bent tunes that hint at Balkan modalities or Latin rhythms and even a wry quote of the Mentos ad jingle. The three-horn front line of trombonist James Hirschfeld, reed player Josh Rutner, and trumpeter Eli Asher lock in together and rock the heck out of the compact themes. They can sound tight and polite on a piece like "Jazz Is Dead But Sometimes I Like to Take a Chance with Skeletons" (sic), which harkens back to Ellington's small bands. They can take Charlie Parker's theme from "Moose the Mooche," start it out straight, and then slowly morph it into "Mooch Too Early," a wry deconstruction egged on by Red Wierenga's piano. There is a Breukerish sense of play in the sauntering "Doo Rag" which leads in to the lilting tango of "Cartel," the only extended foray on the release. Here, the horns take turns stretching out on melodious solos over Wierenga's organ-like accordion. The six are also comfortable with pushing things totally out with a series of interspersed free collective improvisations. Throughout, bassist Malcolm Kirby and drummer Ted Poor lock in on the constantly shifting meters, turning things on a dime and kicking the group along. This band would clearly be a kick to see live. The fact that they can put these diverse threads together into a coherent whole is a credit to the entire ensemble, making for an impressive debut.

Throwing this disc into your CD player feels like walking into a really great party, a room full of beautiful, laughing people. And like a good party, by the end of the record, you are left pleasantly dizzy and exhausted. The Respect Sextet draws on all sorts of influences, a philosophy where "everything is respected and anything is grist for the musical mill." Here that could translate into bouts of klezmer-like merriment, rag-time tempos, latin beats, you get the picture... A bonus in the middle of the disc of innovative, often quirky tracks is a fabulous "intermission" cover of the Mentos commercial theme song.

There's something completely un-Eastman about the Respect Sextet. Sure, the relatively young group was formed within the confines of Rochester's most famous school of music, But the sense of adventurousness that pervades Respect's ecstatic improvisations won't be found in standard Eastman curriculum. There's just not much here that can be taught. Period.

Shortly after forming, the members of Respect quickly figured that the best way to achieve the goals of performing near-telepathic improvised jazz was to play, play, play. So they booked a standing weekly gig at Java's on Gibbs Street. And they held on to that gig for two years.

So, in many ways, the band's first official studio release, The Full Respect, is a culmination of all those live workouts, where the band eventually grew comfortable enough to throw caution by the wayside. On Full Respect, all those outlandish musical gestures and experiments are distilled into a frighteningly efficient package. Free jazz mingles alongside odd "standards." Tinges of Latin and Bulgarian music creep through. A raft of "little instruments"--an obvious homage to The Art Ensemble of Chicago--contribute humor and complexity.

The Full Respect gives listeners a change to soak in these sounds, to pick apart these wild improvisations and compositions through repeated listening. But you can attempt to tale it all in on the spot by seeing the Respect Sextet at its CD release party at the Montage Grille, 50 Chestnut Plaza, on Thursday, September 4, at 8 p.m.

This self-released limited-edition CDR reveals just how far this Eastman student-led group has come in its relatively short time together. It also reveals how today's Eastman students are finding their influences in places far removed from the conservatory. Touchpoints here revolve mostly around AACM Chicago jazz (the Art Ensemble leaves its indelible impression all over "sechs," a wonderful demonstration of Respect's improvising) and just about anything on Okka Disc.

But there's plenty here to lend Respect Sextet its fair share of individuality. The accordion that introduces "cartel" sounds a bit too far afield until it becomes the piece's melodic backbone. Other shots of adventurous instrumentation keep things interesting as the group veers from deep rhythmic workouts to open drones and hilarious vaudeville.

Like any decent jazz sextet, Respect is capable of sounding like many different bands on the same record. It goes without saying that we're lucky to have them in our own backyard.