Rob Brown: Walkabout

Despite spending the majority of his career as a side man for William Parker and Matthew Shipp, Rob Brown is perhaps the most recognizable alto saxophonist on the East Coast. Recognizable not because he is famous (far from it), but simply because he is rather difficult to mistake. His sound is abrasive, bellowing and free, oozing with a crooning full-force poignancy reminiscent of his late mentor Lee Konitz. Perhaps it is the singular presence of Charlie Parker in his oscillating scoops and double-tonguing that grants him a unique flare and, with it, a bottomless rhythmic vocabulary.

A number of names come to mind after a first spin of Walkabout: Eric Dolphy, Clifford Jordan (especially his Mingus days), even the soulful tenor of Eddie Harris. Never perfect in imitation, and right when you have pinned him down, Brown seems to catch himself in the act, growing restless and slipping his way out. Similarly, bass virtuoso Brandon Lopez and exciting drummer Juan Pablo Carletti fit a type, a profile, but not for very long. Carletti is frenetic between mallets, sticks and hands, a diversified ruckus that always appears to shift right under your nose. Lopez begins with bow-heavy booms in the opening track, then gradually strips down into an almost animalistic pizzicato as the record continues. "Microcosm" is an ironic yet fitting name for the mammoth opener, as all three performers run the gamut of their individual repertoires in rapid near-schizophrenic unison.

In the ensuing three tracks, such riotous showmanship is allowed to slow down, complicate and fester, like an open wound smarting under some rubbing alcohol. "Zephyr" is orchestrated at first around Brown's droning horn and an expressive percussive line from Carletti, before leaving room for a vociferous solo cello. Lopez is sharp, mean, endlessly intuitive. He is never satisfied with a single quality, simultaneously percussive and droning. In "Neural Pathways," he is spidery underneath Brown's toots and shrieks. It is rather easy to describe a bass performance as 'haunting,' but in Lopez's case the word is used literally. The bow is like an interpreter, some hallowed funnel from which Brown and Carletti's rowdiness is exploited for their darker, plaintive undertones. Like a ghost, his character is faint enough to cast doubt on its intention, blending with the sonic waters flowing from his peers, but distinct enough to grow his shape into a palpable malice.

The final track, "Tousled and Jostled," mirrors the collaborative assault of "Microcosm," but thoroughly unified into an undulating cliff of improvisation. Brown relishes in boppier progressions, while Lopez and Carletti scatter into jumbled masses of creaks and splashes. The listener is passed between two abrasive soundscapes and left to fend for themself whatever path they choose. It can be a challenging 10-minute stretch, yet when the cliff begins to crumble, there is a strange reward in the more contemplative, almost classical, duet between horn and bass as Carletti's rubble begins to soften.

It is this endless stylistic expansion between performers that allows Walkabout to excel. There is no album in recent memory that rewards so much in frequent re-listens, as if to get just a bit closer to that elusive quality of Brown's playing. If none of the artists can boast wider fame among jazz connoisseurs, it is because they have no interest in defining their sound, their style or themselves. There is the air of pure freedom all about the record, the freedom not only to interpret the acts of your colleagues, but to describe something unseen, unheard in every new experimentation.

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