https://youtu.be/mngCTGpi-ws


James Falzone: Bb and Eb clarinets
Ken Vandermark: Bb clarinet, bass clarinet, baritone saxophone
Keefe Jackson: tenor saxophone, bass clarinet, contra Bb bass clarinet
Jason Stein: bass clarinet
Ben Goldberg: Bb clarinet, contra Eb alto clarinet
Ned Rothenberg: Bb clarinet, alto saxophone


CREDITS
Recorded April 12, 2013 at Electrical Audio in Chicago
Engineered by Greg Norman
Mixed by James Falzone and Greg Norman
Mastering by Jason Ward at Chicago Mastering
Design by Johnathan Crawford
All photos of The Renga Ensemble by David Sampson

Allos Documents is pleased to present the debut recording from James Falzone's Renga Ensemble, handpicked by Falzone, drawing together some of the most diverse and adventurous clarinet and saxophone players working in jazz and improvised music today:

James Falzone: Bb and Eb clarinets
Ken Vandermark: Bb clarinet, bass clarinet, baritone saxophone
Keefe Jackson: tenor saxophone, bass clarinet, contra Bb bass clarinet
Jason Stein: bass clarinet
Ben Goldberg: Bb clarinet, contra Eb alto clarinet
Ned Rothenberg: Bb clarinet, alto saxophone

LINER NOTES BY CLIFFORD ALLEN
I.
“I was working as an understudy for Buster Smith, the alto player that Bird loved so much. Buster Smith was my director, and that's where I got most of my stamina for playing the saxophone. It was so frightening standing next to him, because it seemed like the sound was coming up through the ground, up through the bottom of the horn and out through the bell.” –Prince Lasha in conversation with this writer in 2005, published in “Prince Lasha’s Inside-Outside Story” on allaboutjazz.com

The woodwind family is borne of the earth. Though saxophones and clarinets are machines designed to move air and project sound, they channel something much greater than mere breath. Connected to fingers, facial muscles, tongue, neck, arms, torsos, lungs and legs, reeds make a circuitous but definite path to the ground. In multiple, they create an undeniable sense of textural force and can signify as much propulsion as a rhythm section might. One thinks of the great woodwind sections of Ellington, Basie and Kenton, not to mention Sun Ra’s Arkestra or Muhal Richard Abrams’ Experimental Band. Prince Lasha, a flutist, saxophonist and clarinetist, was speaking above to the sound of Texas saxophonists like Booker Ervin, Ornette Coleman and Dewey Redman.

One might extrapolat.......
more