Jessica Constable

Ellery Eskelin w/ Andrea Parkins

& Jim Black + Jessica Constable

 

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  photo: Robert Lewis
   

Ellery Eskelin - Quiet Music

(primesource 2006)

Ellery Eskelin - tenor saxophone

Jessica Constable - voice

Andrea Parkins - accordeon, piano, sampler

Jim Black - drums and percussion

Philippe Gelda - piano, organ and vocal

 

 

 "Singer Jessica Constable, who guested on  Ten, is now completely integrated into the group; her breathy, wordless  voice murmurs and snakes alongside Eskelin’s smoky horn, set against  ever-changing panoramas created by Parkins, Black and occasional guest keyboardist Philippe Gelda. The music is elusive (if not always quiet), but the band’s interplay is never less than taut and secure."     Steve Smith, TIME OUT, NEW YORK

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“Constable's wordless vocalizing instills either a sense of harrowing urgency or a sublime sequence of musical events that augment the ensemble's intersecting components. And they inject free improvisation type meltdowns, where the band seamlessly morphs a potpourri of calming effects into a robust group sound, enamored by the artists' acutely-placed dynamics.”  –     ALL ABOUT JAZZ

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 "It is this writer’s opinion that Eskelin’s choice to add her  (Jessica Constable) to the group as an equal sonic partner is among the best decisions of his musical career. Employing a wavering, multivalent sound not unlike an alto version of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Constable takes Eskelin’s already complex compositions and shoots them through with yet another layer of counter-melody. It is easy to discern upon listening to Quiet Music that Eskelin, for his part, truly relishes the challenge of writing the human voice into his pieces ...He has at once made something new and paid homage to the rich history of jazz, never an easy feat, but one which this quartet pulls off with remarkable aplomb.."           C. Eric Devin THE STUDENT INSURGENT,  OREGON

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" ...this latest Eskelin dispatch – a double-disc – is a corker.

Still using a working methodology of recording at the end of tours, when the music is well-lubricated, the band has shaken their sound up a bit (not least by augmenting the trio on recent releases). While some fans of this group – one of the best working bands of the last decade – have professed not to like the stylistic shifts, I find them admirable. All of Eskelin’s music begins with tone, after all, that marvelous tenor voice that has so many characteristics – deep mahogany, a throaty quaver, a slight acidity during one of his trademark multi-register runs – but is so distinctly Eskelin. Just listen to him work the circular speed riff on which “The Curve” is built. Is there anyone else who can sound so out and yet so like Ben Webster in a single phrase? It’s nice to hear so much unaccompanied Ellery on this track, by the way, and at the very end of “Tomorrow is a New Day,” the pounding and intense 20-minute finale.

 

 

 

To order the new double album

Quiet Music

click here

 http://home.earthlink.net/~primesource

 

Constable sounds fully at home with the group now. Part of this is surely because she’s a fine, inventive improviser (and I’m pretty critical of a lot of vocal improvisers) but also because Eskelin writes so well for her. Listen to how they work subtly on the boundary of pure freedom and abstract composition on “Let’s Change the Subject.” Ironically, there’s even more space in the band with this additional voice. Black still interpolates rhythmic idioms and Parkins is still a tone-mashing wild card, but there are vast open areas in tracks like “Coordinated Universal Time” and also in the hiccups and pauses of the title track, with Constable summoning ghosts. “I Should Have Known” is filled with gorgeous abstracted lyricism, fragments of melody that seem familiar, with Parkins’ alien chord sequences provoking the whole time. The closest they get to actual song form is on the lovely (albeit elliptical) “Read My Mind” and the gently lolling “Like I Say” (where the group is joined by pianist Philippe Gelda, who also guests with organ and vocals on the liturgical sounding “La Berceuse d’Angela”). “48 A & B” not only has a Braxtonian title but also flashes with some Brax-like moments where Eskelin and Black shift on a dime from pitch-bending free play to a staggered pulse track. And for those craving some heat, cue up the straight-up improv-core propulsion of “Split the Difference” (one of only two tracks, along with the fractured jazz of “Cuarenta y Neueve,” with the original trio).

To me, it’s just not a satisfying musical year without a document from this band. Thankfully, they’re as vital and idiosyncratic, as gorgeously strange as ever.
Jason Bivins DUSTED REVIEWS March 2007


                                                

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Ellery Eskelin – Ten

(Hathut Records 2004)

 

Ellery Eskelin – tenor saxophone

Andrea Parkins – piano, accordion, sampler

Jim Black – drums and percussion

Marc Ribot – electric guitar

Melvin Gibbs – electric bass

Jessica constable – voice

"The gifted and convention-busting tenor saxist Ellery Eskelin has  
appeared regularly in irregular settings over the past 20-odd years,
 but one of the most ear-stretching (and thus ear-massaging) is
this  chamberesque jazz group. Eskelin is joined by longtime ally
Jim Black  on drums, Andrea Parkins on accordion (plus piano and
sampler) and  the conspicuously free-spirited and
improvisation-fluent vocalist  Jessica Constable. Added to the
group’s mix is Philippe Gelda on  keyboards and voice, making for a
variegated improv-plus-structured  recorded performance, Quiet
Music, a two-disc/two-hour set cut more  or less live in France’s
respected French studio, Studio La Buissonne.

Quiet music? At times, maybe, but hardly soft and easy. Eskelin  
demonstrates his distinctive mélange of flavors and intensities  
throughout, and the band exudes intelligence without borders. The  
album is framed by two extended cuts—suites, if you will. On  
“Coordinated Universal Time” (11:22) and “Tomorrow is a New  Day”
(22:35), the project’s stylistic stage is set, between free  zones,
scored sections and patchwork of planned and spontaneous text  
between the instrumental waves. “Quiet Music” mulls and lurks,  
abstractly, while the snaky postbop head on accordion and sax on  
“Split the Difference” manages to, well, split the difference
between  a tumbling swing feel and modernist musings. “Like I Say”
starts with  a steamy sax/drums tete-a-tete, and settles into a
simple four-bar  phrase, looping hypnotically over Black’s
driving-but-tricky groove.

Besides being an impressive and expansive statement of what this  
unusual band is all about, Quiet Music also marks the throwing of  
Eskelin’s hat into the expanding ring of artist-run labels, in this  
case his new company Prime Source. Independence of spirit prevails
on  the musical and organizational fronts. It’s a fine business-wise
how- do-you-do from a veteran-in-training." JAZZ TIMES March 2007

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  (session january 2004 System Two, Brooklyn, New York)

 

 "it is a stunning achievement. The Baltimore-bred Eskelin and his usual associates - multi-instrumentalist Andrea Parkins and drummer Jim Black, joined here by vocalist Jessica Constable and, on several cuts, keyboardist Phillippe Gelda - create a swirling vortex of sounds at once wildly disparate yet absolutely logical. While many might argue the music here is anything but quiet, a more closely focused listening reveals a meditative calm at the center of the sonic storm. For example, at a point about 5 1\2 minutes into the piece entitled "Instant Counterpoint," the leader's tenor suddenly takes center-stage, soon joined by the others. The lines being played appear to jump and spin with apparent abandon, but they are all tethered to a reedy droning buzz generated by Parkins. Later, the title tune contains unison work by Eskelin and Constable that surveys the territory staked out by Steve Lacy and Irene Aebi, with more satisfying results. And Parkins' feature on acoustic piano, "Cuarenta y Neuve" (she also plays organ, accordion and sampler), crosses Monk's angular whimsy with Cecil Taylor's full-frontal assault. Turn down the lights, turn on the stereo and turn the clock face to the wall, because time itself fades away under the heavy sway of "Quiet Music"." David Prince SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN NEWSPAPER

DVD -On The Road with

Ellery ESkelin

w/Andrea Parkins &

Jim Black

featuring Jessica Constable

(2004)

 

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  Like Eskelin's release Ten, the core trio is augmented by vocalist Jessica Constable.  But here, Constable's freely improvised vocals play a more central role in the ensemble.  Using freely improvised lyrics delivered with a clear ringing tone, she phrases her flowing lines like an instrumentalist, using hints of electronics to process the sound.  She brings a delicate lyricism to the group and Eskelin, Parkins and Black respond by introducing more of a sense by space to their interactions.  Eskelin opens up his lines, placing his husky tone, bluesy motifs, muscular honks and percussive pops with laser focus.  Parkins moves between piano, organ, accordion, and sampler, layering in rich textures while always balancing the densities of the pieces.  Black displays a strong sense of dynamics, harnessing his hyper active drive without sounding cobbled in any way .  The first disc of the two-CD set is a more introspective affair.  Highlights include the soulful beauty of the opening "Coordinated Universal Time" which plays out like a free ballad.  On "Instant Counterpoint", the four musicians tag team with jump cut spontaneity, consistently breaking off into various sub-groupings.  On a few of the tracks, Philippe Gelda has also been added on piano and organ, like "Read My Mind", where his resonant chords provide a cushion for Parkins' crystalline piano shards, Constable's quavering vocals, and Eskelin poignantly keening tenor, and Black's sizzling drums.  The second disc displays more of the overt drive that the trio is known for.  It opens up with two trio pieces which careen along with the elastic sense of swing that these three can deliver so effortlessly.  "The Curve" starts out with a stunning extended reed solo leading into an improvisation propelled along by Parkins swirling organ and and skewed samples, Constable's breathlessly urgent  vocals and Black's skittering drums.  On "la Berceuse d'Angela" Constable and Gelda's richly harmonized, medieval-style vocals are placed over haunting tenor, sampled textures, and crinkling percussion. The set closes out with "Tomorrow is a New Day", a 20-minute-long quartet improvisation which builds with a morphing density and flow balancing pure spontaneous freedom with sections of lock-step, thundering grooves, Eskelin's skirling and honking horn blasting against a looping stomp.  
Michael Rosenstein SIGNAL TO NOISE MAGAZINE

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  • Eskelin is a NY saxophonist whose music seems to be coming from some weird netherworld intersection of jazz and improvisation. His longish compositions are ever-changing and unpredictable, with a surprise always around the next corner. He has used the same basic trio lineup (with Andrea Parkins on accordion/keyboards/sampler, and Jim Black on drums/percussion) as his main vehicle for about a decade now. Although Eskelin is the composer/bandleader, all three members have a lot of say in what happens. Black’s off-balance syncopations and Parkins’ unusual chord voicings push the music this way and that, giving Eskelin a robust, though nearly always odd, foundation for his tenor sax flights. On this CD, a fourth musician, vocalist Jessica Constable, is heavily featured, providing some of the most compelling aspects of the ensemble sound. She uses jazz inflections and flirts with strange vocal sounds, while delivering things that could be lyrics but really aren’t; it’s wordless ’sound-language’ vocal improv and let me tell you it’s far out. She does sing actual lyrics in French on CD2 track 6. Another guest, Phillipe Gelda, also sings in French there and adds keyboards to a handful of the tracks. There are tons of interesting ideas here, and Eskelin should definitely be included in any list of today’s first-rate avant-jazz composer/bandleaders.  Max Level KFJC ONLINE
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    "...another in an increasingly amazing discography for the tenor saxophonist. His music is ultra-modern, often sounding like a slide show of urban life; a playful, sing-songy tune here, chaos and beats there, but all seemingly arranged in a grid, like streets in a city. " Dominique Leone PITCHFORK MEDIA MAGAZINE PITCHFORK MEDIA DOT COM

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    "Première constatation : le son du ténor est toujours là, aussi charnu que lyrique, entre plaisir gourmand et quête spirituelle. La dette envers Coltrane n'est toujours pas réglée et c'est très bien ainsi ! Deuxième certitude : Parkins et Black n'ont pas été remisés au placard du passé ni ne se sont eux-mêmes congédiés pour convenances personnelles. Ils jouent même de plus en plus et cela aussi est parfait ! Mais ce qui rompt vraiment avec les précédents opus, et cela est indéniable dès les premières plages, c'est la voix de Jessica Constable qui confère à l'ensemble une douceur apaisante justifiant, à elle seule, le titre de l'album. Par douceur, n'entendez pas "sucre" (aucun miel là-dedans) mais plutôt source claire et surface limpide, étale et sereine ! La Mer de la Tranquillité, en somme, sur laquelle, pourtant, quelques surfeurs téméraires tenteraient et réussiraient mille figures impossibles, solitaires ou groupées, libres ou imposées. Les cinq acrobates de ce curieux cirque flottant traversent ainsi tout l'enregistrement, prenant à chaque instant plus de risques et déclenchant finalement tant de vagues que, dès la deuxième heure, la paix n'est plus qu'un vague souvenir. Et quand arrive la dernière plage où, peut-être, on aurait pu souffler un peu, celle-ci se révèle falaise escarpée, hérissée de pièges complexes, et qu'il ne faut pas moins de vingt minutes pour, enfin, dépasser.

    La "musique tranquille" d'Ellery Eskelin me semble, à l'image du personnage, tellement accidentée que son auteur lui-même s'avère incapable de donner le change bien longtemps. Et cela donne à ce très beau CD un double visage, entre calme et violence, assez semblable, finalement, au monde dans lequel il a été créé. Mais ne nous y trompons pas : ce qui, pour le saxophoniste, paraît le comble de la paix, serait, pour beaucoup d'entre nous, un effroyable chaos."Joël Pagier Improjazz Mars 2007

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    You can listen to a duo session by

    Ellery Eskelin and Jessica Constable (jan 04) at :

    http://www.wfmu.org/special.php/HP