Tigersmilk is free jazz improvisation by Rob Mazurek playing cornet andelectronics, Jason Roebke on bass and Dylan van der Schyff on drums."Free jazz" is a genre every bit as conservative as any in that mostconservative of musical realms: jazz. It has its standardizedtechniques, stock gestures and established styles and this CD is sodeeply into the manipulation of these familiar symbols that I wonder ifthe intent is post modern. Roebke and van der Schyff are both verycapable and skilled in such manipulations. Indeed Roebke boasts amasters degree in improvisation, a training that, judging by thisdocument, included almost all the elementary avant-garde bass playingtechniques that I loathe (the ugly-bowed harmonics, out of tune doublestopped chords, muted pizzicato, etc,...). When Roebke gets going inthe accompaniment role, the competent result is the Gary Peacock stylethat unlimited numbers of bass players apparently never tire ofimitating. An accompanying blurb quotes Jazz Times as comparing van derSchyff to Oxley and Lovens. This is informative only up to the pointthat van der Schyff can clatter around the kit in a fairly frenetic anddisconnected way like those Europeans do, but beyond that thecomparison is misleading. Firstly, he clearly sounds like a jazzer andsecondly, he is a sympathetic and supportive drummer rather thanleading the process by constantly challenging it. (Basically the quotemeans that van der Schyff can imitate the Lovens sound fairlyaccurately, which is true.) The contrast in musicianship betweenMazurek and the others on this CD could hardly be starker, and yetagain, what should be the last resort of stylistic imitation is in factthe first. Loud raspy trills and split-notes in familiar suddendisjointed gestures are offered up as a version of avant-gardeexpressionism. All in all, it's hard for me to imagine how anyone canreally get excited by playing all these tired old ideas again andagain, which is maybe why Tigersmilk sounds as though the players arealready bored by the whole thing. Read More
