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Conference Call: What About...?

By Raul d'Gama Rose
November 20, 2010
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It has been said that live music offers the composer the opportunity to add the final ingredient in the decoction of their creation: the audience. In the case of Conference Call's 2007 concert in Krakow, Poland, documented on the double-disc What About...?, there's the dramatic addition of completely spontaneous, improvisations by one or more of the fiercely creative quartet. It's also why the mercury rises fast and furious from the get-go; the musicians taking ownership of their evolving sound, as its dramaturgy remains rich, and full of blood, guts and naked emotion throughout. Not that the group wears its hearts on its sleeves, but this inventive music clearlyemerges directly from the artists' souls.

The soul does not disguise the feelings of nervy minds, not in the case of Conference Call, at any rate. Questions are asked: "What About the Future?" The answers are complex and probative, but always dazzling, like the assault of a myriad lights of a new city. Things look good: reedman

Gebhard Ullmann

saxophone
b.1957

" data-original-title="" title="">Gebhard Ullmann's saxophone swings; drummer

George Schuller

drums
b.1958

" data-original-title="" title="">George Schuller's skins fibrillate, flashy and cock-sure;

Joe Fonda

bass
b.1954

" data-original-title="" title="">Joe Fonda's bass is grave and sonorous and roars from the depths; and pianist

Michael Jefry Stevens

piano
b.1951

" data-original-title="" title="">Michael Jefry Stevens is playful, his arpeggios skittering and tearing up the keys. Resolution is, at times, full of towering architecture and immediacy, while elsewhere, songs develop without the haste of arrival. Their enigma is held over until the audience is left gasping for breath. "After Life" is spread likewise over two burgeoning sections until it is brought to a dramatic close in "Part 3," on the second disc.

Yet not everything dallies, seemingly testing the wind with ideas, phrases and long loping lines. Some songs move more rapidly, searing the ears like brilliant flashes of speeding light. Again, their movement is anything but predictable, with "Circle" moving in waves. "Conference Call" is more elusive: at times, an oblique shout out to

Steve Lacy

saxophone, soprano
1934 - 2004

" data-original-title="" title="">Steve Lacy; at other times a quick call to

Heiner Stadler

piano

" data-original-title="" title="">Heiner Stadler, at the time he was involved in his A Tribute to
Monk
" data-original-title="" title="">Monk and
Charlie Parker
saxophone, alto
1920 - 1955
" data-original-title="" title="">Charlie Parker (Tomato, 1978). History is well learned, and kept alive through dissonance and consonance. Heritage is playfully encountered in "Could This be a Polka," and then again, more pensively, in "Translucent Tones (Gestalt in Three)."

The collective sonic palette explored further in "Litmus" and "What About...?" is anything but uncertain, being, perhaps, the start of a new, elastic dialogue to add volumes to the literature of music. The poetics of music have been well preserved by Conference Call.

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Track Listing

After Like (Part 1); After Like (Part 2); What About The Future?; Circle; Conference Call; Litmus; After Like (Part 3); Could This Be A Polka?; Translucent Tones; What About...?

Personnel

Conference Call

Gebhard Ullmann: tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, bass clarinet; Michael Jefry Stevens: piano; Joe Fonda: bass; George Schuller: drums, percussion.

Album information

Title: What About...? | Year Released: 2010 | Record Label: Not Two Records

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