For their debut recording, the Chicago based quintet
Zing! has incorporated many elements of progressive jazz, improvised music, rock, and funk that appeals to their youthful peer group. Psychedelia, noise, hard bop inferences, industrial sounds,
Led Zeppelin/John Bonham type drumming, and influence of the AACM can all be heard. Trumpeter James Davis and saxophonist Caroline Davis sound like a mutant version of the
Dizzy Gillespie/
Charlie Parker combine, with a multitude of twists and quirks at their disposal, whether playing lines in unison or opposite each other. Their relationship to each other sings, whoops, and hollers, cries in anguish or wholeheartedly are in agreement, and set the tone for all of these original modern compositions. The key word for the group sound is development, as theme is established, washed away, sometimes brought back, and wildly expounded upon. The animated complexity of "Boo Boo Bah Bah" (ghosts and sheep?) with a burst of shout-outs, counterpoint among the horns and implied swing perfectly reflects their stance. Going further out, the urgent bright unison horns give way to inserted spastic interplay during the outstanding "Social Democratic Metal Workers," while "Incongruent" may suggest a disconnect with its 13/8 rock beat, stops, and resumptions, and a fun, even danceable approach. There are free discourses and short themes as on "Bad Out," noise and industrial complexity for "As Play," and fusion oriented, stomping, then cerebral, walking in 6/8, or horn and drum trade-offs as on the 11-minute "Cellular 2."
Zing! also have more pensive and languid moments, courtesy of the plaintive trumpet call of James Davis on "Five & Six," or the spacious, airy "String" which turns dark, stalking, eventually sped up, and nightmarish. A group that seemingly is capable of anything, it's remarkable what they have accomplished here, considering it's their debut recording. Hot off a triumphant concert at the Winter-2007 International Society of Improvised Music conference at Northwestern University,
Zing! sounds poised to make big waves on the contemporary music landscape. ~ Michael G. Nastos