From classically trained but forward-thinking bassist
Jonas Tauber comes this album of free jazz recorded live at the Jazz de Opus club in Portland. Accompanying him are drummer
William Thomas and pianist Doug Haning. Here, the trio performs a good deal of spontaneous improvisation, delving deeply into the free jazz ideals on the fly. The only thing tying the trio down is a mysterious clinging to a centering around prime numbers as the basis for the works. Beyond this, they move rapidly and seemingly randomly throughout the scales, roving madly but beautifully at the same time. With such a de-emphasis placed on the composition aspect, what stands out for the listener is a good deal of virtuosity on the parts of all three musicians.
Thomas can move easily between full-scale attacks on the drumset and quieter bits of accompaniment, but seems equally at home working his way through a quick solo here and there. Haning comes across with some amazing arpeggios and bop-inspired piano lines, but always manages to twist the end result into something unexpected before he's done. His speed is the real key, though.
Tauber is perhaps the most understated of the three, as he often stays behind the louder instruments. Coming up for his solos or breaks in the playing of the others, though, one can hear him easily keeping pace with the other two, pulling out some fast melodic lines on the bass with some incredible fluidity. Moreover, he's bowing the bass for a good portion of the album (and was that a cello midway through?). It's an unconventional album, but that's also the beauty here. The focus on prime numbers is certainly not that of the mathematician-cum-musician and their infinite projects to re-create the mastery of
Bach's formulas, it's something entirely non-logical in many ways, and perhaps that's why it's prime numbers being used rather than the conventionally divisible sets.