Harris Eisenstadt

Harris Eisenstadt has carved an interesting niche for himself compositionally, focusing on interesting material delivered through unique instrumentation. On his new Cleanfeed release Guewel we are treated to a particularly fascinating program of Senegalese Mbalax music. The band interpreting the music made up of Eisenstadt on drums, Josh Sinton on baritone sax, Mark Taylor on french horn, Nate Wooley on trumpet, and Taylor Ho Bynum on cornet and flugelhorn. It's a conceptual followup to his 2003 release Jalolu that featured similar instrumentation and a focus on the music of Africa.

The result of the non-traditional instrumentation is that certain aspects of the Mbalax tunes are highlighted in ways that they wouldn't be in their original forms. Certain elements, melodic or harmonic, are emphasized rather than blended, or at the very least blended in a strikingly different manner.

Add in a healthy dose of improvisation to the mix, no surprise given the credentials and focuses of the musicians involved, and we get a rather stunning program of music.

I'm familiar with less than half of the 5 tracks' original versions, although I will certainly seek out the source material now to compare. It is certainly rich in melodic and rhythmic inspiration, and Eisenstadt is a worthy interpreter having spent time in Senegal studying the music. Some of the melodies played are downright catchy.

While it's sometimes difficult to parse the transitions between the arranged and improvised sections, often occurring somewhat abruptly, they are positioned in such a way that the changes are always refreshing. Eisenstadt has an impeccable sense of time both on the drums and in laying out the overall structures of the songs, and the musicians on the record execute it all with a relaxed ease. After repeated listens I also must say that it is a truly fun album.

The instrumentation creates a lot of space for the melodies and improvisation to breath. A great record and concept, and certainly amongst my top records of 2008, a list I still haven't managed to compile.

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Divided up into to two distinct but related programs of music, The All Seeing Eye + Octets finds percussionist, composer, and fellow blogger Harris Eisenstadt tackling two bodies of music: the first 5 tracks are septet arrangements and interpretations of Wayne Shorter's 1965 album The All Seeing Eye, and the final 6 tracks are octets, augmented by a conductor and penned by Mr. Eisenstadt himself.

I've been listening to the album for a few weeks now, and before I wrote about it I had to go back and listen to the original Wayne Shorter album so I could hear how Harris has interpreted Wayne Shorter's music. First, the instrumentation: the numbers have basically remained the same, with Wayne Shorter leading a septet through most of his disc, with his brother Alan Shorter making it an octet on the last track. The instruments and timbers have changed however, with Eisenstadt employing a vibraphone, two clarinet/bass clarinetists, trumpet, bassoon, bass, and drums. It's certainly a reedy sound, with the bassoon and two clarinetists, and the vibraphone, an instrument I am particularly fond of, adds an important sound to the mix. The lineups of Shorter and Eisenstadt have in common an absence of a traditional chordal instrument like piano or guitar, and although the vibraphone could fill that role, it doesn't tend to do so in the arrangements. I find the result to be sonically different in ways that are complimentary to the original; he's taken a different palette to paint the a similar picture, the old forms recognizable but transformed in the new product.

The All Seeing Eye portion of the program has a remarkable flow and continuity between tracks. There's a mood that pervades the proceedings that I'd rather not attribute to any specific emotion or association, but there is definitely a thread that binds it all together. Part of it is the mix and production which is very consistent throughout, bringing the winds up front and keeping the drums more distant, lending some depth to the sound. I think the other part of it has to do with the sound of the arrangements that Eisenstadt has created; it's clear that he had a very specific sound in mind for this ensemble and project. I find the end result to be complimentary to the original without having so much overlap that comparison becomes preoccupation. Covering a song can be a thorny proposition, let alone a whole album, and Eisenstadt has managed to do it with marked success.

The second program on the album is a series of Octets, Without Roots I, II, and III, and What We Were Told, I, II, and III. There are inevitably going to be comparisons made with chamber groups, given the presence of a conductor and the instrumentation and sound. To my ears, the presence of a conductor was probably necessary for some of the cues given the fact that the leader was behind a drum set with both hands occupied during the proceedings. And while there is a harmonic quality that certainly evokes more chamber-y contexts, there's an underlying rhythmic thrust and groove that pops up throughout that distinguishes it from the chamber pack. It's obvious to my ears that Harris Einstadt is the kind of composer and listener who doesn't care much for genre boundaries, knows what his ears like, and isn't afraid to pursue that sound, even if someone might use dirty words like hybrid or fusion to describe the result (not that I would ever use the F word in my own descriptions). Whatever you want to call it, the Octet portion  of the album comes across as thoughtfully lush.

You might notice that I haven't delved into the particularities of each player's sound and musicianship on the record, and I think that's because it's really got a strong ensemble sound that doesn't end up feeling like a blowing session where the individual voices are at the center of the sound. This isn't to say that the album lacks in strong individual moments or players, but it's not the first thing that came to mind when I sat down to write about the music. Ultimately, The All Seeing Eye+Octets is a gorgeous body of music that I think will age well. Highly recommended.