Gianni Gebbia / Matthew Goodheart / Garth Powell - Zen Widow

[Nate Dorward]

A rather distinctive trio improv disc. 17 tracks in 45 minutes--and 11 of the tracks are a minute or less in length. Of the longer tracks 3 are compositions, 3 freely improvised. It's organized in 4 clumps: 5 improvblips, 4 longer pieces; 6 improvblips, 2 longer pieces.

Gebbia, alto, flute
Goodheart, piano, air horn
Powell, drums, percussion, saw, car horns


Doha - two separate blasts of junkyard noise occupying 19 seconds. Someone sounds like they have a distorted electric guitar here, which isn't on the credits so I don't know what it is!

Truncated Sky, String of Beads - isolated squawks cooled down by calmly suspended piano chords. 0:38

And I...Want You to Know - 1:00. Aggressive intro - then it collapses into offhand lyricism, a mini drum solo & then dissolves with a few fragmentary gestures

Id Go Back if I Could - 0:19. Abrasive punky soundblip

Impermanence - 0.23: a little improvised Satie interlude

What We Just Couldn’t See - 6:12, a long one! A quivering stillness; it sounds like Powell's softly playing a hubkaphone; just single repeated droplets from the piano, working through the harmonics on an E-flat; longdrawn Butcherish multiphonics from Gebbia. Halfway through it seems ready to fadeout but instead it turns into more conventionally jittery back&forth improv, the drumming a shower of little tapped-out sounds. & then Gebbia goes all Konitzian at the end (actually his tone reminds me at times of Jon Lloyd too).

Over Me – Over You, 5:21, an actual tune/set of changes by Powell: the song is just a repeated B-flat but fit over a set of chords that droop downwards softly then rise again. The feel reminds me at times of Cecil Taylor/Jimmy Lyons/Sunny Murray's "What's New", though it's much more delicate here of course. A swirling boiling-up lyricism here (not "ugly beauty": "angry beauty")--you might think of Trevor Watts on "Harmos" too. Great stuff.

Folk Song, 8:02, a Goodheart tune with Gebbia on flute. A quivering backdrop created by Goodheart rubbing at the piano strings. Breath-soft gongs from Powell--Mark Wastell eat your heart out. Shadowy flute melody; the percussion becomes more insistent, sharp tangs & distant ceremonial gongcrashes & beseeching wails (or is that the piano strings, scraped? maybe). Eventually the others virtually die away & it's just flute, speaking into open space.

Ancora una Volta un Viaggio con Virgilio - 6:51. Very Ornetteish Gebbia, over obnoxious air horns from the other two players. The other two halfway through switch to their main instruments while still keeping a chattering/clucking squeezedout commentary from the horns. Kinda funky piano from Goodheart, or maybe eventually a little calypso? Overt Ornette qts circa 5:50 from Gebbia, as things really start to heat up (just before the end!) Godawful hornhonk at the end!

More blips--

It Was Meant to Aspire and Languish - 0:49, Konitz practicing scales, a little swing drums, & then a shuffle of fragments & we're done

Un Sogno che sta Sbiandendosi Lentamente - 0:16 -- a beast yawning & stretching & going back to sleep

In the Old Familiar Places - 0:32 -

Uvaach -- 0:41 - delicate but stern thunder & lightning, & Gebbia only plays a single questioning interval

Iti - 0:17 - catspat

Ripenso e Mi Rende Meravigliarsi - 0:58: slaptonguing, clatter, muted piano (so much of the time on this album MG's piano is muted/played on the strings quietly, scraped & rubbed), a soft interlude then a Zorn shriek

Back to the long ones--

Zen Widow, 5:53, a Gebbia tune. Eerie soft opening that will appeal to the e.a.i. crowd. An eerie wobbly song/wail--it's Powell's saw. Twitters & frightened chirps from Gebbia's sax. Piano pedal down throughout, Goodheart keeping to one (pulsed) note at a time. A haunted echochamber of a piece.

Mistaken Poetry (5:17)--not credited to anyone but you would have thought it was a composition, it's that orderly. A similar opening--Goodheart's pulsing single note, but then Gebbia drops into his free-Konitz mode & all of a sudden this could be one of Paul Bley's more restless albums, a trembling, elusive lyricism, delicately broken piano chords, swirling around, the drums making circles like pondripples. It eventually gets to a kind of Nabatovian delicately-fierce climax, & Gebbia re-enters & there's a passionate colourburst of sound--yet right on cue it twists & turns into the most minimal & openended of endings.


A very good disc--I think I could have used more of the long pieces & don't really know what to make of a shorties but that's just quibbling.

[gnhrtg]

I'm interested in hearing Gebbia, as king ubu and D.D. at organissimo lay lavish praise on him, so I think I'll pick up either this or Arcana Major (have you heard that Nate? or anyone else?) soon.

[Nate Dorward]

No, I haven't heard Arcana Major or other Gebbia releases--I gather AM is o/p so if you want it pounce on it now......

[king ubu]

Finally registered here... got to post in a Gebbia-thread!

As I posted on that other board, I saw the trio live a couple of weeks back and they were quite good! I only there, at the concert, picked up the "Zen Window" disc. It's quite different from what they do live (there are none of those bits and pieces live, only long, really long, explorations) yet a very good disc, in my opinion.

On "Arcana Major" - I guess some of you are aware it is also known as da shit. They had a few of both discs with them and sold them for a nice prize. So I guess that "Arcana Major" could still be bought from Gebbia, directly. You may try and get in touch with him via his website.

[Dan G]

Gebbia is one of the great overlooked players. He's quite diverse, and while he veers off into noisy territory quite frequently, and also explores a lot of he same territory as John Butcher at times, he still retains a lot of jazz influences as well as Italian folk musics.

Arcana Major is very good, definitely grab it if you ever see it. Probably his best. His other solos that I've heard are also worthwhile: Body Limits is from mid 90s, and H Portaits a couple of years later, so it is good to hear them to see what came before Arcana Major.

With groups, Cappucino Klang is a trio with Peter Kowald and Gunter Sommer, so no more need said, get it. People in Motion, with Damon Smith and Garth Powell, is maybe the most straight ahead album he's done. Worthwhile. And the fact that they got away with the cover is a testament to how obscure the musicians and the label (Rastascan) are.


The Terra Arsa stuff is interesting, but depends on how much of the vocalist, Miriam Palma, you can take. Personally, not much. But there's an album with Gebbia, Palma and a bunch of the Bay Area folk - Smith, Powell, Robair, Nunn, etc - in various small groups that is also worth hearing. Again, on Rastascan.

[D.D.]

Originally Posted by Dan G

But there's an album with Gebbia, Palma and a bunch of the Bay Area folk - Smith, Powell, Robair, Nunn, etc - in various small groups that is also worth hearing. Again, on Rastascan.

That's A Night in Palermo. Quite uneven collection - and a lot of Parma's vocals. Arcana Major is still Gebbia's best - by a wide margin, IMO.

[king ubu]

There is another disc with Gebbia that I have and quite like, Pronto! on Intakt. It's a trio disc with an electronics guy and Nils Wogram on trombone. I still have bad feelings for someone who picked it up on my recommendation and didn't like it, though... so be warned!

[gnhrtg]

It worked - ubu and D.D., nice to see you here.

I like what I've heard of Wogram so I'll also keep an eye out for that Intakt.

[John B]

I've not yet heard Zen Widow , but I can vouch for the excellence of Arcana Major . It is fantastic.

Another disc of his that I would recommend that hasn't been mentioned so far is Outland , on Splasc(h).

[hermann]

I like 'Pronto' with Nils !

[SilentKnowledge]

Originally Posted by Dan G

.

With groups, Cappucino Klang is a trio with Peter Kowald and Gunter Sommer, so no more need said, get it

That album is great.

A related disc which features the same 'rhythm section' but a different horn player: Aphorisms: 26 Statments of the Situation

Another disc with concise pieces. The woodwind player is named: Floros Floridis. He is indeed another under-valued player and very versatile.

[djll]

I have a number of disks with Gebbia incl. the aforementioned Arcana Major and Night in Palermo and Zen Widow, but good as they are they don't capture what I feel is Gianni's strongest asset, which is a huge tone. I've had the pleasure of seeing him live three times, in solo, in improvised groupings, and with Zen Widow. That band live is something to see. Garth Powell is a sadly underrecorded percussionist with a mad gleam in his eye and a tendency to Benninkesque explosive episodes, and Goodheart has the ability to bring together the music into instant compositions of real substance and haunting beauty. The trio delivered a spectacular set at the 2004 SFalt Festival.

[Paul B]

Powell is a fantastic drummer. He used to play with Rova's Bruce Ackley in a trio (along with the bassist George Cremaschi) called Actual Size.

Bye-ya