Last night I watched the limber free jazz quartet Engines rip through a set of new-ish tunes at Elastic, fine-tuning them for a Sunday-night performance at the Hungry Brain, where those pieces will be recorded for a forthcoming Okka Disk release. The rigorously organized riffs and rhythmic inspire tough improvisation from trombonist Jeb Bishop, reedist Dave Rempis, bassist Nate McBride, and drummer Tim Daisy, but the quartet also generates extra improvisational meat using visual cues, altering the background and rhythmic accents bubbling behind other parts or solos. The group will play two sets on Sunday.
According to jazzcorner.com the brilliant jazz saxophonist and clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre, who pioneered a highly influential strain of chamber jazz with pianist Paul Bley and bassist Steve Swallow starting in the early 60s, died yesterday, just two days shy of what would have been his 87th birthday. He was suffering from pneumonia and Parkinson’s disease.