Dunmall,
Levin,
Rogers and
Tippett perform and record on a regular basis as the
Mujician quartet, and the addition of
Elton Dean on saxes and
Roswell Rudd on trombone adds some weight to the quartet sound, but doesn't change the style of the music appreciably. Like
Mujician, this augmented group starts with relatively open-ended collective improvisations, concentrating initially on individual instrumental textures and timbres, and then works its way gradually into melody, metrical regularity and interactions among various group members. Each of the three long pieces is a journey, and process is at least as important as product. In fact, the episodic, improvisational nature of the music is such that the CD might as well be one long 60-minute composition, because there's no clear sonic or stylistic transition between one piece and the next.
Rudd is a real presence at times on trombone; he's an expansive, extroverted musician playing an instrument which accentuates such personal qualities. On occasion,
Rudd's presence gives some of the blues-oriented sections a gregarious, almost Dixieland sensibility.
Dean and
Dunmall are both excellent on saxophones, and although there's no information on who's playing what, I suspect that
Dunmall would be most often on tenor, while
Dean would be playing his standard mixture of alto and saxello. The emotional range of the music on
Bladek is enormous, and includes poignant solo work, both lyrical and raucous dialogues between group members, broad blues swagger, and some powerhouse collective free blowing which recapitulates the best of the late, expanded
Coltrane groups. ~ Bill Tilland