jazz.pt
patrick brennan / Maria do Mar / Ernesto Rodrigues / Miguel Mira / Hernâni Faustino / Abdul Moimême: The Sudden Bird of Waiting
(Creative Sources)
Rui Eduardo Paes
June 29, 2020
The North American alto saxophonist patrick brennan, having already lived for a number of years in Portugal, but today based in New York City (he’s originally from Detroit), came to our country to play with friends he’d left here (most especially with Abdul Moimême — with whom he’d established strong musical connections and who also participates in The Sudden Bird of Waiting) and with others who join him. This took place in 2018 and is now in the form of a CD. brennan has also played the bass viol (and cornet, as we hear here), so his pairing with bowed strings came very naturally.
His interlocutors are Maria do Mar on violin — who was already at the time a stand out on the Portuguese scene, Ernesto Rodrigues on viola, Miguel Mira on cello and Hernâni Faustino on double bass, with Moimême adding, with his two simultaneously played prepared electric guitars, an electroacoustic dimension, in most cases discreetly, only taking on more pronounced contours on the last two tracks, A que Distância? and O Pássaro Repentino da Espera.
The instrumentation, the names in attendance, and the fact that this is an Creative Sources release predicted that this would be a freely improvised music album. But, if improvisation is in fact integral, this is one of the few titles associated with free jazz in the label’s catalog, which is directed by Rodrigues.
There is nothing about the Charlie Parker with Strings formula, as you would expect, but this does at the same time maintain a few links with Ornette Coleman’s Skies of America. Imagine one of Cecil Taylor’s units with Michel Samson or Ramsey Ameen, add more chordophones and take the piano out of the equation, and this will be closer to the type of situation that’s explored on this record. Even though patrick brennan is not Jimmy Lyons, the auditory references inevitably go that way.
Musical balances and (intentional) imbalances are between the alto sax on one side and the suit of cards of violin-viola-cello-contrabass on the other, with our attention permanently ping-ponging from side to side. And if listening to brennan’s alto (and his “spoken word” on Nextness) is a pleasure, the extraordinary thing is the rapport that Mar, Rodrigues, Mira and Faustino manage to establish among themselves. One delight of a disc.