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GUILLERMO E. BROWN
Soul At The Hands Of The Machine (Thirsty Ear)
Reviewed by DJ Johnson
As the drummer of the David S. Ware Quartet, Guillermo E. Brown has been to school. Not to suggest he didn't bring a considerable talent into that quartet, but when you're working with Ware, keyboardist and avant-god Matthew Shipp and bassist William Parker, you're going to come away from every single concert with a head full of ideas. On Shipp's recent CD, Nubop, boundaries were blurred and electronica leaked onto the jazz playing field in a very interesting way, though if any criticism could be leveled from a pro-electronica viewpoint it would be that only some of the music was colored by those sounds, and then lightly.
Guillermo E. Brown's solo debut, Soul At The Hands Of The Machine, isn't lacking for electronic involvement, nor human involvement. Brown attempts to strike a balance, programming complex but delicate beats that sound like the tip of the stick on the edge of the drum head, countering with his own acoustic drumming, from which the pieces get their power. Even when Brown is building tension with constant snare work and programmed bongo strikes, there's a beauty to it that holds you in place. Sometimes it's a simple sound like a basic tone, sometimes the wordless voice of Latasha Natasha Diggs, sometimes it's something breathtakingly beautiful like the sound of (I believe) bowed glass, or its MIDI equivalent. Eventually you're let off the hook and carried off by Brown's band, surrounded by piano, bass, drums, and samples, and beckoned along by the distant sound of Andre Vida's exotic sax lines. At the end of the song, you don't arrive so much as dissolve.
In the liner notes, Brown states that we are "operating within dimensions of sound rhythm movement. We are expressing the possibilities for identity's multiple realities." His stated mission is to "uncover truths, begin things anew, respect the past, break away from it, engage the present, look toward the future." Avant-garde is so personal for each listener it's impossible to say whether he succeeded or not. He certainly married electronica and avant-garde jazz in a much stronger union than Shipp did, to the point where it's hard to decide how to describe this CD. Is it an electronica CD with intense jazz overtones or a jazz CD with fanciful electronica textures? The trance fan in me finds this far more satisfying than the avant-garde fan in me finds it, so for me the question is answered and I'm putting it on my electronica shelf, where it will probably be the only CD that isn't desperately trying to electronically simulate talented players of every instrument, or sampling them.
Overall, I'm quite fond of Soul At The Hands Of The Machine. I feel a little bit disappointed that the end of the CD is nothing special. It just drops off, leaving you waiting for another track as if it was never quite finished. Once I accepted that not everyone is obsessed with making each CD a complete show with a beginning, middle and end, I just pushed the LOOP button and closed my eyes for a while. Nice, spacey sailing.
© 2002 - DJ Johnson