Trevor Watts & Veryan Weston - 5 More Dialogues [Emanem]

Trevor Watts - soprano & alto saxophones

Veryan Weston - piano

Emanem 2011

While words are essentially worthless when describing the music, they're sort of a necessary evil. A well-known fact which is a preface to some of the most witty, absolutelty excellent liner notes to this album, courtesy of Brian Morton - the co-author of "Penguin Guite to Jazz", that (attempt to) speak not only about the music but also about speaking about the music. "Wordplay and psychology go hand in hand", says Morton and he's certainly right.

Might be strange to start a cd's review by referring to its liner notes but, when everything feels like a Schrodinger's cat that is and is not at the same time, I feel I can't really say anything more or better about the music on this album. Instruments seem to be an extension of the body (as the improvisation can be considered an extension of body-language). Improvised structures appear and disappear throughout the musicians' dialogues and the real-time flow make it impossible  to say what act brought which react, yet there's clear, if apparently random, connection between all the actions (I recently praised "Tessellations" composed by Weston which is a research in progressive scales and both Watt and Weston love musical lines of algebraic/geometric precision and complexity).

So we have two musicians playing within their personal styles, yet in total command of what they play, defined by what they play which is defined by who they are and vice-versa . And all those antagonisms bring music that is searching, absolutely serious and  seriously abstract yet at the same time playfull and charmingly nonsensical - a friendly leisure pasttime.Which, in my oppinion, makes it as much more relevant, as it makes the serious - playfull opposition irrelevant.

Indeed psychology and wordplay go together and to proof that the titles of the tracks are wordplays ("cuTWOrm", "Exchanged Frequncies", "rooTWOrm", "Frequent Exchanges", "flaTWOrm"). And you can enjoy those and Brian Morton's liner notes listening to brilliant playing as two great musicians go hand in hand, head to head or saxophone to piano.

A track from the cd is presented in this playlist here. 

so, to continue this Shrodinger's cat's story, here's an excerpt of this duo's concert (there are more to be found on youtube also) which, an unique manifestation of improvising art, presents music that is utterly different from what you'll find on the cd and yet unmistakenably recognizable as those two playing together.