By Gary Chapin
I went through a phase, decades ago, when I had a deep fascination with
like-instrument groupings. The World Sax Quartet, the Clarinet Summit,
Rasputina, the League of Crafty Guitarists, ROVA, et many
cetera.
Among these was
Max Roach’s M’boom
, a septet that set expectations for jazz percussion ensembles. They
included trap sets AND every other thing you can imagine that makes a
pleasing sound when you hit it. Part of M’boom’s charm was its
outre
quality, but part was its connections to traditions from the Caribbean and
other places. (The Balafon Marimba Ensemble
was a rabbit hole that I well and truly went down.)
All to say there is solid ground in my mind for Thomas Fujiwara’s Percussion
Quartet to build from and excel upon—not to mention his own long experiences
and collaborations, such as the brilliant Pith (reviewed
here). Let’s thank whatever stars (or granting organizations) had to align for
Roulette to commission this work.
I’m tempted to just say “there are a lot of drums!” But quantity, in this
case, has a quality all its own. Fujiwara does “drums and compositions;”
while Tim Keiper comes with “donso ngoni, kamale ngoni, calabash, temple
blocks, timbale, djembe, castanets, balafon, found objects, and other
percussion.” Kaoru Watanabe wields “o-jimedaiko, uchiwadaiko, shimedaiko,
and shinobue.” Patricia Brennan brings her sublime vibes to the mix.
You can hear Brennan shimmer in the opening piece, a haunting reflective
number that leans into the disquieting, intentional imperfection of the
vibe’s timbre. From this beginning we are reminded that the usual rules
don’t apply, that slow-slow and fast-fast can play in the same space
together, and that the absence of melodic information from many of these
instruments (though there are also many pitched percussion) leaves an
opening for other types of information.
One of those types of info would be the ritualistic, spiritual, and uncanny.
“Mobilize,” for example, brings to mind New Orleans parade beats, but also
the Dr. John voodoo vibe of Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya-Ya(“dance
ka-lin-da-ba-doom!”), and “Blue Pickup” comes at us with a martial urgency.
Prayer, war, and mating are the most ritualized activities of the human
creature, and all have historically required the services of the drummer in
order to achieve transcendence—for good or ill.
As the record progresses, Fujiwara uses the drums and their possibilities,
stacking up little instruments and large—and again, Brennan’s vibes—in ways
that feel impossibly complex but also inevitable. It’s the sort of
paradox one expects of a great composer—it’s kinda their job—and
the inclusion of rock solid improvisers adds generative chaos to the mix.
Dream Up is an extraordinary act of emergence. It’s like water.
Neither oxygen nor hydrogen are wet, but bring them together and they
sustain all life on the planet. Dream Up’s quality of
sustaining—life? soul? spirit? joy?–is equally a function of the quality
that arises between the individual percussionists. Five stars.