Bassist and pianist Scott Walton's interests cut across musical genres. He has collaborated with poets, dancers, performance artists, filmmakers, and multimedia artists, and is featured on recent CD releases with the Vinny Golia Quintet (One, Three, Two), Cosmologic (Syntaxis), O'Keefe, Stanyek, Walton, Whitehead (Tunnel), and Jeff Kaiser (17 Themes for Ockodektet). Current projects include work with the Vinny Golia Quintet (Vinny Golia, Michael Vlatkovich, Nels Cine and Alex Cline), Cosmologic (Jason Robinson, Michael Dessen, Nathan Hubbard), the Rain Trio (Eric Barber, Alex Cline), and O'Keefe, Stanyek, Walton, Whitehead (Pat O'Keefe, Jason Stanyek, Glen Whitehead).

As a pianist Walton has commissioned and premiered works by numerous composers (most recently, Cort Lippe's Music for Piano), has toured the U.S. with the Octagon Ensemble for New Music, and has collaborated in interactive computer and multimedia performances with Vibeke Sorenson in Lemma 2, the latest result of the Global Visual Music project. He is currently performing an improvisationally inspired interpretation of Charles Ives' Concord Sonata.

As a bassist he has also recorded with George Lewis, Bobby Bradford, Anthony Davis, and Carmell Jones, and has performed with Wadada Leo Smith, John Carter, J.D. Parran, Gerry Hemingway, Quincy Troupe, Ray Anderson, John Abercrombie, Phillip Gelb, Davey Williams, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Clifford Jordan, Al Cohn, Buddy Tate, and Frank Wess, among others. He has recorded on the Soul Note, Nine Winds, Jazz'halo, Circumvention, pfMentum, Koch, Centaur, Albany, and Revelation labels.

Scott Walton can also be heard on http://www.davidlipten.com/works.html where he’s playing the David Lipten composition Ever Since for piano (2004) on piano. Scott Premiered this music in Feb. 2005 at the University of Richmond, Richmond, VA and he performed it in Nov. 2005 at the University of San Diego, San Diego, CA. He also premiered David Lipten’s Snap for piano (2005) in Nov. 2005 at the University of San Diego, San Diego, CA. The Lipten composition Best Served Cold for piano (2003) was performed in Feb. 2005 at the University of Richmond, Richmond, VA and in Nov. 2005 at the University of San Diego, San Diego, CA by Scott Walton.

The Vinny Golia Quintet - One, Three, Two (Jazz'halo, double album, 2004)
O'Keefe/Stanyek/Walton/Whitehead - Tunnel (Circumvention Music, 2003)
Cosmologic – Staring At The Sun (Circumvention Music, 2000)
Cosmologic - Syntaxis (Circumvention Music, 2002)
Cosmologic - III (Circumvention Music, 2005)
Jeff Kaiser - 17 Themes for Ockodektet (pfMentum, 2002)
Chris Chafe - Arcology (Centaur, 2001)
Anthony Davis - Tania (Koch, 2001)
O'Keefe/Stanyek/Walton/Whitehead - Unbalancing Act (Nine Winds, 1998)
Bobby Bradford - One Night Stand (Soul Note, 1989)
Carmell Jones - Returns (Revelation, 1982)
Ellen Weller – Spirits, Little Dreams And Improvisations (Circumvention, 2004)
  Scott Walton is featured on tracks 15 & 16
Nathan Hubbard – Skeleton Key Orchestra (Circumvention, 2003)
   Scott Walton is featured on double bass on disc 1 (tracks 1, 2, 3 & disc 2, tracks 1, 2 and 3) and on prepared piano on disc 2 (track 4)
David Borgo – Ubuntu (Cadence Jazz Records, 2004)
  Scott Walton is featured on tracks 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 12
Gilbert Isbin/Jeff Gauthier/Scott Walton – Venice Suite (Jazz’halo, 2006)
Harris Eisenstadt – The All Seeing Eye + Octets (Poo-Bah, 2006)

COSMOLOGIC

Cosmologic traverses the broad terrain of creative jazz and improvised music, integrating high-energy playing, intense introspection, rich grooves, open textures, and collective alchemy. Their two releases, Staring at the Sun (Circumvention 2000) and Syntaxis (Circumvention 2002), have been highly acclaimed by a wide range of music critics and listeners. Members of Cosmologic reside in Southern California and Massachusetts, where they are active members of thriving creative music scenes (especially Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco).

"Intense peaks of clamorous excitement... Near-spiritual communication... The group dynamics of Cosmologic are in full effect, and the music is commanding. As a unit, these four musicians click."
Cadence Magazine

"It's a charge when a record immediately makes me say, "Oh yeah," and then maintains the level... Cosmologic embodies every value that hooked me improvised music...freedom, energy, swing, interaction, and compositional originality."
Los Angeles Weekly

"With motivated and talented young musicians of this calibre, there's no doubt that jazz can be a creative force. Long gone are the days when things West Coast were considered pallid in relation to anything East Coast, an for any of the doubters out there, here's the proof positive."
Coda Magazine

"Wildly spontaneous... Fascinating..."
Don Heckman, Los Angeles Times

"Forget commercial labeling, this is real contemporary jazz."
Jazz Weekly

"Forget what you think you know about San Diegan music.... these guys wail, play taut ensemble charts, float freely, and generally give West Coast post-free jazz a good name."
Santa Barbara Independent

"Just plain good music...having sizable stylistic debts to post-bop and free jazz masters, but sending out a force of expression which end up in places that transcend genre."
San Diego New Music Newsletter

"The musicians show how good a live unit they must be: the solos are wild ... the beats infectious, the energy freely flowing from one group member to the next."
Francois Couture, All-Music Guide

O'KEEFE, STANYEK, WALTON, WHITEHEAD

O'Keefe, Stanyek, Walton, Whitehead (Patrick O'Keefe - clarinet, bass clarinet; Jason Stanyek - guitars, koto; Scott Walton - bass, piano; and Glen Whitehead - trumpet, flugelhorn) began working together as a group in 1995. The space they engendered has been predicated upon inclusivity and flexibility. They have been open to using everything that is at their disposal -- they compose as well as improvise; they incorporate a diverse array of influences; they experiment with new tuning systems, new timbral configurations, and new modes of musical interaction; they initiate pieces as individuals; they collaborate. They are constantly searching for new ways of making music together. They have developed a critical rapport that has helped them to form a highly idiosyncratic set of strategies which have, in turn, enabled them to create a succinct, expressive music that is evocative of their multifaceted backgrounds and abilities.
O'Keefe/Stanyek/Walton/Whitehead have performed at venues throughout California, including Beanbenders in Berkeley, the Alligator Lounge in Los Angeles, and Spruce Street Forum in San Diego: as a quartet, and with Anthony Davis, George Lewis, Wadada Leo Smith, Vinny Golia, Philip Gelb, and LaDonna Smith. They have collaborated with Lower Left Dance, choreographer Christina Jones Stewart, performance artist Stephanie Juno, and Argentinean filmmaker Maria Burns.
Their second CD, Tunnel, has recently been released on Circumvention. Their first CD, Unbalancing Act, was released in December 1998 on Nine Winds.

"These four improvisors have created a liberatory set of pieces, drawing upon their individual personalities and experiences, their development of group understanding, and their omnivorous, yet mindful enunciation of sonic sharing."
George Lewis

"It's always exciting and rare to hear a group of new musicians who are working at developing their own musical language, but it's more exciting still when they demonstrate (these) levels of individuality and collective vision and accomplishment."
Stuart Broomer, Cadence

Michael Dessen - trombone, bell
Jason Robinson - saxophone
Scott Walton - bass
Nathan Hubbard - percussion

Recorded live, February 24, 2000, at Galoka Jazz Scene, San Diego, CA


"Robinson returns on [Staring at the Sun] with the piano-less quartet Cosmologic where the aggressive trombone of Dessen does combat with Robinson's tenor in a very overt display of power. The music is quite unlike the group style discussed in the preceding review. Robinson dons a more dynamic, freewheeling hat, while the band, thrust forward by the open and explosive drumming of Hubbard, builds the selections to intense peaks of clamorous excitement. It is reminiscent of the reed/brass clashes of Tchicai and Rudd of the 1960s when musicians were experimenting with unstructured music sans piano. Dessen thrusts himself into the music with vigor. He plays with a growling, nervy style to match the pugnacity of Robinson. The two often move the battlefield into the collective arena where they pit their outbursts against each other in gladiator fashion.
The performance was recorded live and includes seven selections, all of which were composed by either Robinson, Dessen, or Hubbard. While the two horn players have the center stage, the undercurrent is continually being swirled by Hubbard and bassist Walton. They swarm in eddies of motion to establish a backdrop of free-rhythm potency. The two go non-stop with their energized delivery while Robinson and Dessen bounce their own waves of brawniness off each other. The pace slows on two selections when Cosmologic tempers the movement with near-spiritual communication. Eerie arco bass and shimmering cymbals support the drone of the horns to calm the waters momentarily. In either mode, the group dynamics of Cosmologic are in full effect, and the music is commanding. As a unit, these four musicians click."
Frank Rubolino Cadence, Jan 2001


"Cosmologic jumps right out of the gate from the git-go...this unit bumps and grinds from all sides...they offer us a range of musical perspectives that include structured improvisations, buoyant free-boppish mazeways and a wistful ballad. With motivated and talented young musicians of this calibre, there's no doubt that jazz can be a creative force. Long gone are the days when things West Coast were considered pallid in relation to anything East Coast, and for any of the doubters out there, here's the proof positive."
Marc Chenard CODA, ISSUE 297, May/June 2001


"When last we caught bassist Scott Walton in the area, he and Jim Connolly were holding down the low-end fort in the little/large ensemble at Ventura City Hall last December. The occasion was the 40th birthday bash for Jeff Kaiser, who guided the ensemble in a sonic banquet, sometimes anarchic, sometimes swinging. Saturday at Espresso Roma, Walton shows up with the San Diego-based Cosmologic, fronted by saxophonist Jason Robinson and the excellent trombonist Michael Dessen, and grounded by Walton and drummer Nathan Hubbard. Forget what you think you know about San Diegan music: based on their 2000 CD Staring at the Sun, these guys wail, play taut ensemble charts, float freely, and generally give West Coast post-free jazz a good name."
Josef Woodard Santa Barbara Independent, March, 2002


"Despite the best efforts of bored critics (yours truly included) and polemicists alike, the proclamation that "jazz is dead" no longer raises as many eyebrows or ruffles as many feathers as it once may have. Nonetheless, every so often there comes along a musician or group of musicians that touches upon this debate - just long enough to remind us of its irrelevance. Enter Cosmologic. This "avant-jazz" quartet's first recording (made live at the Galoka jazz club, their place of birth and a staunch supporter of local creative music) is just plain good music, having sizable stylistic debts to post-bop and free jazz masters (Dolphy, Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, etc.) but sending out a force of expression that ends up in places that transcend genre.
Most of the cuts on this disc bear large resemblance to the work of certain progressive (especially New York-based) improvisors found pigeonholed in the jazz market, such as Ray Anderson and Joey Baron, who combine unorthodox harmony and fragmented phrasing with consistent but sometimes elusive pulse. All of the tunes are original; three are written by trombonist Michael Dessen, two by saxophonist Jason Robinson, and two by percussionist Nathan Hubbard.
Including bassist Scott Walton, the group's uncanny chemistry is surely enhanced by this equal distribution of musical activity, a balance which many more traditional jazz ensembles sorely lack. "Nomad Land" features Dessen's versatility in free ensemble dialogue with Walton in addition to tasty honkin' and screamin' as a soloist over extended grooves. Similarly, Hubbard's penchant for textural swimming in "Shrouded Over With Fog" is matched by his straightahead swing in Robinson's haunting "Hell in Hat Yai." The band is particularly impressive as a unit on the last track, Dessen's "Prayer: Faith in Humanity," a touching ballad which reveals the unornamented warmth and sincerity of each musician as an equal partner in sharing "both sadness and hope" with the listener."
Christopher Williams, San Diego New Music 2001

Jason Robinson - saxophone, electronics
Michael Dessen - trombone, bell, shakers
Scott Walton - bass
Nathan Hubbard - percussion
Recorded live March 15 and 16, 2002, at Spruce Street Forum, San Diego

Cosmologic captures a raw, energy-laden sound on their second live release. Syntaxis demonstrates a strong connection to the "free" jazz of the 1960s, but with a decidedly modern resonance - new compositions stretch the possibilities of the horns/bass/drums group, and the inclusion of live electronics widens traditional sonic boundaries. From a strong emphasis on improvisation to sinewy grooves, Syntaxis captures Cosmologic's live aura.


"In recent years, the San Diego area has emerged as a blossoming seed of creativity, and the music of Robinson, Dessen, Walton, and Hubbard (a.k.a. Cosmologic) is indicative of the healthy foliage sprouting from that fertile environment. The brawny muscle of tenor saxophonost Robinson and trombonist Dessen ignites the music, while spirited propulsion streams from bassist Walton and percussionist Hubbard. Robinson is a high-soaring improviser who has gutsy tonality and the innovative mind to back up his statements. Combined with the stout, forceful blowing of Dessen, the music springs forth with an initial surge of energy and then maneuvers into exotic realms where the electronics provide another dimension to the equation. Power music is temporarily exchanged for nuance-dominated interplay as clanging percussion, ritualistic rhythms, and tempered horn musings guide the team into uncharted waters. The energy level, however, cannot be held in abeyance, and the team re-emerges in characteristic full frondescence to conduct the session in total battle gear.
The program is abundant in originality erupting from the compositions, all of which were contributed by these artists. Dessen is the most prolific of the group. He was involved in the writing of six of the pieces, and each gives many opportunities for trombone and tenor to make dominant assertions combined with perceptive rhythmic interaction of bass and drums. Mood swings are a significant factor in the performance. Tempo changes occur midstream on any given piece, making each selection unpredictable. Quiet starts turn into enthusiastic romps, and fast breakers from the gate transform into ballad scenarios. The music crosses chronological time zones, showing total understanding of the history of free playing as well as its electronic-inspired future. Mostly, it represents an ambitious party for improvisers asserting their free will. Cosmologic is a together band with many inventive cards up its sleeve. It presents music of burly consistency without sacrificing sensitivity."
Frank Rubolino, Cadence, Nov. 2003


"Recorded live in San Diego, California, where reedman Jason Robinson and drummer Nathan Hubbard are members of the Trummerflora Collective, a creative music organization, Cosmologic gets much of its impetus from trombonist Michael Dessen. Dessen, who has recorded with flautist Yusef Lateef and as part of pianist Anthony Davis' opera Tania, is a clean, ultramodern soloist whose execution while far from gutbucket doesn't preclude emotion. Many of the pieces are set up with tonal contrasts between Dessen and Robinson, who brings a similar conception to his reed playing. Heading up Circumvention Music as well as doing other projects, the reedman has worked with... improvisers like trombonist George Lewis, Davis and the late bassist Peter Kowald. On this CD, the reed-brass partnership sometimes take on the fleet trapping of how trombonist J.J. Johnson and saxist Clifford Jordan used to manufacture swinging cool-bop lines. Funk is sometimes mixed with the Californians' fleetness, though, as on "A Secret No One Knows II," where Robinson screeches away at breakneck speed like a new thing Johnny Griffin, while Dessen appear to expending no spit as he manipulates his slide into a lazy counterline at half speed. Dessen begins "Artichoke Clock" by squealing off-kilter tones from his bell, meeting thick blasts from Robinson's sax that dissolve into the hiss of colored air, giving the trombonist time to sound the theme. Soon he's going down the chromatic scale in single notes as Robinson works his way upwards the same way. After bouncing tones off one another, the rhythm section finally comes in, spurring the front line to combine and play sharper and more staccato lines.
Percussionist Hubbard, who studies the rhythm traditions of the Caribbean, South America, West Africa, Eastern Europe and Indonesia, over time cranks up his beat work on snares, bass drum and toms then pulls out a clattering collection of so-called little instruments. Meanwhile bassist Scott Walton, whose playing partners include Lewis, Davis and a New music ensemble, produces abrasive steel wool-like swipes on his bass strings, then turns microtonal, cramming more notes into his output, which also never loses the foot-taping beat. Also not lost is the quick darts of Dessen's slide that sneaks in between the bass and drum excursions. "Metal Tears" and "Circle Syntax," which combine without a break, showcase Walton's shaken and stirred bass work most prominently. Launching a languorous blues progression at one point, speedy arco work elsewhere and combining low notes from his bottom strings into a buzzing, connective melody, he holds his own with Hubbard. The percussionist mixes irregular, mallet-driven drumbeats and echoing cymbal pops, brushing cymbals, broadsword wooden block whacks and what appears to be American Indian-influenced snare work. Harmon-muted legato line slurs and growls on the former tune, then produces some Harmon-muted legato line on the later tune, though there also seems to be hints of Robinson's electronics and Dessen's bell as well.
Forget commercial labeling, this is real contemporary jazz."
Ken Waxman, Jazz Weekly (www.jazzweekly.com)


"Cosmologic's second CD is a honest effort with its share of strengths and weaknesses. The Californian quartet approaches the free jazz idiom with fresh ears, injecting in it Vinny Golia's charts and a drop of jazz-funk. The tunes penned by trombonist Michael Dessen show the strongest resemblance to West Coast avant-jazz pope Golia; they have his knack for tying a melody into a complex knot. In Artichoke Clock Dessen's writing hits a peak, but his stylized motifs are no match to the more visceral and groovy pieces by Jason Robinson ("Birdrock Dub &"Axis") and Hubbard ("A Secret No One Knows II). In these, the musicians show how good a live unit they must be: the solos are wild (Robinson's tenor flight in "Axis" provides the disc's peak, the beats infectious, the energy freely flowing from one group member to the next. Bassist Scott Walton gets an "official" feature spot in "Metal Tears", but his beyond-the-bridge arco work had already provided key textural counterpoint to the first minutes of "Mr. Hubbard's Shock Installation". The closing "Ten Directions" sees Robinson trading the sax for a flute hooked to electronics, while Dessen and Hubbard provide a bed of hand drums and shakers -- an unexpected and delightful finale."
François Couture All-Music Guide http://www.allmusic.com


"A four-piece free-bop unit in the tradition of Ornette Coleman's famous / infamous quartet or (more recently) Luther Thomas' quintet efforts on CIMP Records, this is trombonist Mike Dessen, drummer Nathan Hubbard, sax player Jason Robinson and bassist Scott Walton. They wig out and in with similar facility, compose knotty head melodies and often (thanks to the odd mixing of the sax's and the trombone's sonorities) often recall the great small orchestras of the 1950s; see, for example, the dotted whole notes that open up STARING AT THE SUN's "Hell in Hat Yai," the noir spy-music theme (these fellows are from California, after all) , and how Robinson and Dessen slip back into the dotted droning to let Hubbard swarm over his kit with some ambidextrous bravura. Who says nobody can arrange any more? Walton is the resident minimalist with the best grasp of history on board, some of his rhythmic popping is simply as fast and as on-point as I've heard from anyone recently. Would like to hear him bow more, especially in the unison bits as on "Shrouded Over With Fog," where we hear him doing a gypsy post-horn thing under Robinson's and Dessen's long-form modulations. Hubbard's ability on the bass drum could fill in for the actual bass for 16 or 32 bars every now and again, no problem. But this group clearly knows what they're doing.
STARING was recorded in 2000 in La Jolla, California, before a very appreciative audience, and they could have counted me in as well.
SYNTAXIS reminds me of an old acquaintance's warning: "Avoid all groups which call their tunes things you suspect they made up." Not so here: I mean, if I took that seriously I would never buy a Xenakis CD. A studio effort recorded in 2002, we hear on this recording a more austere 20th-century European influence. And no, I'm not one of those who framed that New York Times article decades ago which likened Cecil Taylor to Arnold Schoenberg. Both geniuses, yes. Birds of a feather, not a chance. But I get a tremendous jolt from the almost Sixies-ish dream-sequence cymbal work Hubbard lays down for the opening "Restless Years," over which Robinson and Dessen give forth a gnarled switchbacked head worthy of Ligeti. Robinson's work on this CD has more of a Coltrane-like tendency to take chords apart under a microscope; sometimes the band do this ensemble in one of their more meditative moments ("Birdrock Dub", a trio for all but Hubbard, in which Robinson and Walton do the unison line throughout and Dessen climbs down from there occasionally to do the bass notes). Good programming here as well, since "A Secret No One Knows II" kicks into high gear right off directly after. "Axis" seems to take a clip out of a solo and play it as a melody, another pretty wild ride considering it's midtempo.
The influences weaved into these two CDs may not be the most up-to-date but the playing and the melody are. Either is very much worth your lunch money. "
Kenneth Egbert Jazz Now http://www.jazznow.com/1103/NS1103/NSCosmo.html


"Cosmologic giungono al loro secondo album con un live che li conferma essere una delle proposte, pi&Mac247; interessanti, giunte negli ultimi tempi dagli Stati Uniti. Il loro organico cattura una formazione classica: sax, flauto, basso e percussioni, che si avvale anche di leggere screpolature elettroniche quanto mai discrete. I componenti del gruppo sono attivi in una miriade di altre sigle, delle quali vale la pena ricordare la Skeleton Key Orchestra e Unbalancing Act. Quello che piace di questo disco sicuramente Ë la voglia di proporre una concezione del jazz e dell'universo improvvisativo assai debitore e particolarmente devoto a tutta una serie di mostri classici quali sono stati i vari Mingus, Coltrane e forse il Davis più visionario. Si nota un forte attaccamento agli anni 60 e questo li rende diversi ed in qualche modo più simpatici di tanti altri. Sono particolari minimi quelli che rendono l'opera piacevole, nella scrittura affiora una decisa volonti di non esagerare nel proporre situazioni caotiche prediligendo una esposizione corale rivolta a ricreare un'atmosfera talvolta realmente spirituale attraverso dolci discese in meandri mai troppo cervellotici. E' una capacite questa che non Ë da tutti, mentre buona parte della galassia impro-avant guarda verso regioni talvolta eccessivamene cariche di compiacimento esecutivo i Cosmologic preferiscono far risaltare la coraliti dell'esecuzione generando situazioni che non si fatica a definire psichedeliche.
L'improvvisazione presente nella loro anima Ë rivolta a ricreare energetici ed ampi spazi dove il grooves presente fra i musicisti risalta in maniera nitida e permette di catturare appieno la dimensione compenetrativa della loro dimensione live. Le screpolature elettroniche di cui riportavamo sopra altro non si rivelano essere che delicati giochini di sfondo che contribuiscono a divertire l'orecchio dell'ascoltatore, senza mai farlo precipitare in dolorosi vortici sonori. Complessivamente la loro Ë una visione di strade notturne e di paesaggi metropolitani piovosi, dove i bar non chiudono mai; li avremmo visti bene a far da colonna sonora a "Cocaine Nights" di Ballard.
In definitiva un collettivo alchemico, intensamente introspettivo con una grande carica esecutiva. Fresco e divertente; ci piace molto."
Marco Carcasi Kathodik March 12th 2003
http://www.kathodik.it/modules.php?name=Reviews&rop=showcontent&id=607

Cosmologic - III (Circumvention, 2005)

Jason Robinson – tenor saxophone, Bb clarinet, percussion
Michael Dessen - trombone, percussion
Scott Walton – acoustic bass
Nathan Hubbard – drumkit, marimba, toy glockenspiel, percussion

With Al Scholl on electric and acoustic guitars

Recorded 2004/2005

III is Cosmologic’s third release as a group and continues the collaboration and rigorous evolution of musical approaches which have become a hallmark of the California-based quartet. This new release demonstrates complex, original compositions that have been transformed through extensive group work and improvisation. The resulting pieces draw upon the strengths of Cosmologic’s highly personal musical approaches and create new ways for the group to explore diverse musical landscapes. Because of this, Cosmologic’s performances range widely across different methodologies in improvised music, sometimes within the same piece. Rather than viewing their work as a pastiche of contrasting styles, Cosmologic considers their work as a dialogue among different but related traditions of improvised music, a space where they can explore multifaceted, kaleidoscopic sound worlds and everything that their histories represent about freedom, collectivity, responsibility, and imagination. This third release by the critically acclaimed quartet demonstrates these goals in refined detail.

 Al Scholl:

Largely self taught, guitarist Al Scholl's approach to music has been described as "alternately brash and intensely introspective." Years spent working at record stores and indie labels have infused his aesthetic with a stanky potpourri of influences. The diametrically opposed styles of the gutbucket '50's instro-rockers such as Link Wray flourish alongside the more refined angles of modern experimental music. At least that is what he likes to think. Scholl has been fortunate to perform and record with numerous excellent musicians that you have probably heard of. He has also played with way too many crappy ones that he sincerely hopes you will never have to hear. Luckily, Nathan Hubbard, Jason Robinson and Nate Wooley have been frequent collaborators. A Trummerflora member, Scholl's current projects include the gray matter of Trio Mahgreb (with Marco Fernandes and Tracy McMullen), the beastly Obscuricon and several manic manifestations of the Skeleton Key Orchestra. He has also been seen performing recently with the one and only, Titicacaman

Reviews:

“III haben Jason Robinson (ts, cl, perc), Michael Dessen (tb, perc), Scott Walton (b), Nathan Hubbard (dr, mar, perc) und Gast Al Scholl (g) ganz hervorragend gelingen lassen. Scheinen die Aufnahmen ganz im Beginn noch gemäßigt und harmonisch, breitet sich bereits in den 4 Minuten des ersten Tracks "x marks the spot" mit dem forschen Motiv die aufgeladene und sich frei entladende Vitalität aus, ungreifbar in den Weiten improvisativer Musik, ausgelassen und virtuos wie das Spiel einer Horde Zwölfjähriger.

Die Kompositionen stammen von Nathan Hubbard, Jason Robinson und Michael Dessen. Die Arrangements wurden in der Band ausgearbeitet, und so sind zwar Schwerpunkte zu erkennen, diese werden aber in der humorvollen und fast Tom Waits gleichen Lässigkeit genüsslich ausgelatscht. Keiner steht zurück.

Hubbard beackert sein Schlagzeug, als bekäme er nie wieder die Chance, sich einzubringen. Die Bläser tauchen schon mal in folkloristische Gewässer ein und probieren sich an einem rudimentären Hauch von Albert Ayler, um dann mit der elektrischen Gitarre (die im Laufe des Albums gar mal rocken kann, zumeist aber wie Fred Frith freakig und amelodisch gespielt, seltsame Laute von sich gibt) zu vitalen freien Passagen aufzubrechen, als wolle diese Horde die Welt retten oder ein humoristisches Theaterstück illuminieren.

Die dritte Zusammenarbeit des Quartetts (plus Gast) ist unvergleichlich, von technischer Fingerfertigkeit und tiefer Inspiration, und ganz und gar emotional versunken. Unbedingte Empfehlung!”

VM in www.ragazzi-music.de

 “Halfway through Cosmologic’s III, there’s a short track entitled “Put Some Butter on It (for Malachi Favors Maghostut)”—a stately solo bass composition that invokes the presence of the eponymous Art Ensemble of Chicago bassist and improvising hero. To a degree, it also serves as a clue to the whole rationale behind what this California-based quartet is trying to do on this, its third release. Just as the Art Ensemble made a point of showcasing “great black music, ancient to future”, touching on everything from African tribal rhythms to cosmic funk, so Cosmologic seems intent on exploring as many different types of jazz-based improvised music as it can in the space of an hour.

The album kicks off with the fractured funk of “X Marks the Spot”, propelled by Nathan Hubbard’s knitting-needle drums and Scott Waldon’s rich acoustic bass riff, over which Michael Dessen rolls out some louche, New Orleans-style slide trombone. It’s a prickly, itchy kind of groove—a sort of math-funk—that works equally well on the track “Septurnal Spell”, where irritable, disjointed horn charts are reconciled with a driving bass line to find a real deep-down groove, over which Jason Robinson blows an irresistible tenor.

But dance-floor jazz this ain’t. “Indianhead Canyon” starts off as a piece of sputtering improv, building in waves of non-rhythmic intensity before giving way to an exhausted lullaby with toy glockenspiel and the soothing feel of waves lapping the shore; while “The Wrangler” begins with Braxton-esque honks before moving into a creeping cop-show theme, like a paranoid Tom Scott after one too many ‘ludes.

Perhaps the album’s most ambitious and satisfying piece, though, is “Shadows at Night (Notes from a Quarry)”. Introduced by a distressed arco bass solo, the piece swiftly coalesces into a tight prog-jazz with a commanding martial drum beat, before dispersing into skittering improv, shot through with delicious Sonny Sharrock-style electric guitar shivers from guest Al Scholl. Finally, the piece slides into a slow-burning, bass-heavy groove with tumbling drums and oceanic cymbal-work providing the perfect palette for the two horns to take a solo each.

Elsewhere, “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing” comes on with a stomping, monster beat, with big-booted Frankenstein horns fighting over the top—an ugly sax and a garrulous trombone scrapping in a downtown back alley. And, just in case the album hasn’t been eclectic enough for you, the closing track, “Blacon (Beyond the Divide)” is a hybrid of plodding metal—all fuzz guitar and doomy bass—with club-friendly drum n’ bass rhythms, which soon gives way to a scratchy solo guitar excursion from Scholl before coming down the home stretch as an unstoppable, blues-drenched behemoth on his way to bed.

III doesn’t so much stand as a document of the history of jazz as a brochure for the infinite varieties of modern improvisation (with the possible exception of the straight-ahead swing). It is however, in the final analysis, incredibly rewarding. Sure, it takes a little work but, for every cerebral exercise the listener is required to work through, there’s a funky-as-all-hell payoff. Personally, I call that a good night in.”

Daniel Spicer in www.onefinalnote.com, 16 January 2006

 “Semplice e senza trope pretese

Da “Staring At The Sun”, passando per “Syntaxis” e sino ai giorni nostri con “III”, i Cosmologic hanno raggiunto un discreto riscontro di critica e di pubblico per opera del proprio mood: puntato a direzionare le proprie vibrazioni verso la scena indipendente del jazz di Chicago per trovare nei famigerati Vardermark 5 il punto più alto di comunione.

Anche “III” si vede fresco di stampa per la Circumvention, label d’improvvisata, nel quale interno orbitano due terzi del combo stesso e che ricordiamo per la forte amicizia stretta con il collettivo sperimentale extra-large Trummerflora*.

La formazione che incontriamo al momento è sempre la stessa, ossia quella del quartetto composto da Jason Robinson, Michael Dessen, Scott Walton e Nathan Hubbard, ma vede una lieve alterazione attraverso gli sporadici contributi alle chitarre versati alla bisogna da Al Scholl.
Lo scenario aperto da X Marks The Spot mette d’accordo diversi canovacci dell'era New Thing: il ritmo ed il blues di Charles Mingus, la raffinata scompostezza di Eric Dolphy, la delicatezza di Andrew Hill.

Una predisposizione, questa, riscontrata con solerzia durante la parte iniziale di “III” ma dove parallelamente pongono il loro artiglio anche una serie di nebulosi contributi con cui l’ensemble sfoggia la propria dimestichezza nel dialogare con suoni di fattura più propriamente contemporanea. Ad esempio, nel richiamare il brano di apertura, viene da evidenziare la sottile filigrana elettronica posta da filtro al drumming di Hubbard e la patinatura ovattata che ne (fuori)esce; Shadows at Night (Notes From a Quarry) è una lunga marcia ai cui estremi troviamo incastonati attimi di puro swing, mentre nel suo interno fanno capolinea una massiccia dose di esercizi free-form.
Da segnalare sono i deliziosi inserti jazzy delle corde di Scholl, i quali più di una volta si faranno osservare con meraviglia per le ammiccanti soluzioni (ri)cercate.

Septurnal Spell, a dispetto dei precedenti, si veste di un’anima ancor più spumeggiante, dove l’armonia imperante si abbiglia senza troppe remore di tratti somatici, velatamente, caraibici. Il brano è firmato da Dessen e mostra quanto nei Cosmologic viva un’anima eterogenea, facendo risultare la scrittura di quest’ultimo decisamente opposta a quella di Hubbard e Robinson (gli altri intestatari delle composizioni). Put Some Butter On It, dedicato a Malachi Favors, è un lento assaggio di solo contrabbasso, in cui i venti lontani della gloriosa AACM sciorinano di pari passo alla scrittura ‘ascetica’ di Don Cherry. Le pulsioni introspettive, qui ritrovate, fanno da preludio alla lenta e raffinata apertura di Indianhead Canyon, un brano il cui movimento si aziona gradualmente e dove viene sfoderata l’anima più collettivista e free del quartetto.

Proseguendo avanti, l’ascolto del cd presenta sempre più movimentazioni radicali: una tendenza che si riscontra con netto vigore sia in The Wrangler, che dentro Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing. Ancora una volta vengono cambiate la carte in tavole ed a concludere il tragitto sono le smussature in salsa strange rock di Blacon: un calderone in cui convivono Frank Zappa, languidi wah-wah (della chitarra) ed una ritmica che senza troppa vergogna corteggia istanze drum ‘n’ bass.
Senza troppe pretese i Cosmologic con il loro carattere solare costruiscono un lavoro in cui il jazz è solo la base di partenza per incontrare forme ed esperienze molteplici. Vi consiglio di riservare un ascolto per la primavera che verrà, “III” potrebbe essere la colonna sonora ideale per trascorrere giornate spensierate al cospetto di sole tiepido e tonificante."

Sergio Eletto in ww.sands-zine.com, 8/1/2006

“The third and newest album by this talent-rich San Diego quartet is a gem of crisp ensemble-playing and finely calibrated improvisations. Tenor saxophonist Jason Robinson and trombonist Michael Dessen are equally enjoyable as soloists and as sensitive foils who support each other throughout, while bassist Scott Walton and drummer Nathan Hubbard anchor and drive the music with propulsive rhythms and deft contrapuntal accents.

Highlights include "Put Some Butter On It," Walton's deeply felt solo bass tribute to the Art Ensemble of Chicago's recently deceased bassist, Malachi Favors, and the Hubbard-penned "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," a funk-inflected tune that boasts some of Robinson's most charged playing on the album. Then there's "Shadows at Night" and "Blacon," both of which feature guest guitarist Al Scholl. Despite lasting more than 11 minutes each, these extended musical dialogues sustain interest throughout, thanks to their high level of craft and invention.”

George Varga in entertainment.signonsandiego.com, November 10, 2005

 “Modern jazz quartet (occasionally a quintet) let by Nathan Hubbard, Michael Dessen and Jason Robinson. Maybe that's too many leaders, but they all contribute songs. The extremely democratic doling out of songs and solo time also carries over into the nicely balanced feel of the group. The only thing that dominates is the music--and this is very good music.”

Jon Worley in www.aidabet.com

“Formation phare de la scène sud-californienne, Cosmologic propose, depuis plusieurs années, une musique qui chemine sur des sentiers risqués et aux contours obscurs. Rien de lisse mais une recherche sur les sons qui s’accompagne d’une réflexion sur le traitement de la matière.

Le saxophoniste Jason Robinson porte ce projet depuis les débuts. En s’entourant du percussionniste Nathan Hubbard, révélation de la scène californienne de ces dernières années, ainsi que du solide tromboniste Michael Dessen, le musicien de San Diego aura réussi à conjuguer autant de visions de la création contemporaine. Le contrebassiste Scott Walton, qui complète le quartet, n’est pas en reste, il sait supporter le jeu et maintenir un tempo élevé : de la grande classe ! (écoutez notamment son interprétation solo sur Put Some Butter On It, pleine de sensibilité). III, le dernier projet en date, comprend des pièces écrites par Jason Robinson, Nathan Hubbard et Michael Dessen qui ont été retravaillées par le quartet et enrichies par des improvisations collectives maîtrisées. L’apport aux guitares électrique et acoustique d’Al Scholl renforce la palette de couleur et les pistes de relecture des pièces.

Un disque solide qui participe à révéler quelques-uns des meilleurs instrumentistes de la côte ouest américaine."

Sébastien Moig in Jazzosphère n° 27 (décembre 2005)

“For Europeans it sometimes looks as if all American jazz and improvised music comes from New York City and the NY area. Nevertheless, also at the West-Coast they make extremely nice music. Proof are the regular releases on the Nine Winds label (label well known for Jazzflits readers). The quartet Cosmologic from San Diego also makes fresh and exciting music. They combine the best elements from composed jazz and free improvised music into a total own sound. Although the music on this 3^rd CD (Circumvention Music) is reasonable complex from time to time (with the necessary polyrhythmic and contra point), everything is very accessible thanks to a certain dance feel. The melodic groove that bassist Scott Walton and drummer Nathan Hubbard set up in many pieces, sometimes reminds at the work of Dave Holland. That all four of the musicians (who without any doubt form a collective) have a wonderful sound on their instruments is an extra. The frontline from tenor saxophone (Jason Robinson) and trombone (Michael Dessen) sounds perfectly together, and in the bass intro from ‘Indianhead Canyon’ Walton makes his strings sing on a majestic way. Guest guitarist Al Scholl understands the intentions of the group perfectly, and he’s fitting perfectly in the band.”

Pat O'Keefe - clarinet, bass clarinet
Jason Stanyek - fretless and quarter-tone guitars
Scott Walton - bass, piano
Glen Whitehead - trumpet

Recorded July 22 and August 12, 1999 at Spragueland Studios, Encinitas, California
Mixed and mastered Summer, 2003

O'Keefe/Stanyek/Walton/Whitehead continue their sonic explorations with their second CD, Tunnel. Recorded in the summer of 1999, this set of improvisations highlights the ensemble's textural dexterity, and their amazingly refined sense of timbral development, both individually and collectively. Tunnel captures O/S/W/W at a crucial point in their journey, when extended temporal structures were of utmost concern. Often soft and slow, yet never static, this disc bears influences from AMM and Evan Parker's Electro-Acoustic Ensemble to Feldman and Ligeti, while always retaining O/S/W/W's unique sense of group identity.

From the liner notes of Tunnel:

"This quartet's beautiful brand of chamber improv deserves its quirky endorsement from Wadada Leo Smith, who describes the "lyrical/expressic designed sonic fields that are constructed with a continuous evolving music". This is live improv with some editing in post-production, it says here, and the focus is textural not melodic. "Trace" is almost Feldmanesque, and Jason Stanyek, mostly on electric fretless and quarter-tone guitars, is the major noise maker, though on "Graft" other players also take a less restrained role. A richly rewarding disc that repays repeated listening."
Andy Hamilton The Wire, Jan. 2004

"There's clarinet, guitar, piano and trumpet on this, but you almost wouldn't know it. You're in a factory at midnight as the janitor drags an oil drum across the cement floor. And it sounds beautiful."
Greg Burke, LA Weekly Dec. 2003

"Il quartetto composto da O'Keefe, Stanyek, Walton e Whitehead si presenta con una delle classiche formazioni jazz: sax, tromba, basso, chitarra e piano. Una musica perÚ che stenta a rimanere circoscritta nei canoni del genere ma prova il sorpasso a destra in virt&Mac247; di un atteggiamento e una concezione libera e avanguardistica della materia. Fidandoci delle parole di Wadada Leo Smith, che tiene a battesimo quest1/4opera, siamo al cospetto di una musica che viene dal cuore ma che soprattutto mira ad esso. Ci dice ancora che Ë un suono da intendere come un unico flusso continuo che si muove e si sviluppa secondo forme orizzontali. Non possiamo che concordare. Le 7 improvvisazioni dal vivo che compongono il disco vedono il quartetto agire non pi&Mac247; per sottrazione ma proiettato a sviluppare il loro suono tramite movimenti che tendono all1/4interazione tra le parti, all'arricchimento di particolari seppur a volte in maniera minima e di sottofondo. Gli strumenti, i suoni, si muovono per stratificazioni, attenti a coprire e ricoprire il substrato sonoro; le note sono tirate ai limiti, i fiati, sulla spinta degli insegnamenti di Evan Parker, si fanno stridenti fino ad assottigliarsi, le note del piano fanno la loro comparsa col contagocce, la chitarra, discreta quando Ë acustica, rumorosa quando si fa elettrica, dona in questi ultimi casi un tappeto industriale e sottilmente disturbante da farci pensare ad una AMM ridotta ai minimi termini. Barlumi di relativa accessibiliti emergono nel contesto di quando in quando: un fraseggio di jazz noir al piano, qualche nota riconoscibile di sax messe in serie una dopo l'altra. Un lavoro notturno e catramoso, complesso ma nondimeno affascinante. "
Alfredo Rastelli Dec. 2003 www.kathodik.it
4 STARS

"threshold", Opener auf "Tunnel", beginnt bezeichnend. Jason Stanyek bearbeitet seine Fretless And Quarter-Tone Guitar, auf das quietschende, knirschende Töne scheinbar elektronischer Natur entstehen, die trotz aller Lautstärke und kreischenden Dissonanz Ruhe und Lyrik ausstrahlen. Pat O´Keefe setzt mit der Klarinette ein, trägt die Töne in melodischer Weise fort, illustriert sie spielerisch. Scott Walton greift in die tiefen Saiten seines Flügels und bringt damit düstere, mystische Töne hervor. Glen Whitehead bläst durch sein Trompete hindurch und nur stilles Rauschen vermittelt sich dem Ohr. Unbemerkt ging die freie Improvisation in das zweite Stück "trace" über, das in fast völliger Stille wie ein Lufthauch verfliegt und langgezogene, dünne Töne offenbart, die sich wie im Wind wiegen. Scott Walton streicht den Bass und die Schwelltöne kriechen wie ein Ameisenzug über den Rücken. Die Düsternis des Themas ist ob ihrer Stille fast schon komisch. Zum Ende von "race" haben sich die Töne melodischer, konkreter zusammengefasst und finden zu einem lyrischen Motiv, das von einem zerfahrenen Trompetensolo gekrönt wird. Ganz im Gegensatz zum 2. beginnt das folgende Stück "Boundaries" in schräger Lautstärke, kreischend wie eine Futter entdeckende Hühnerschar, die furios ans Körnerklauben und Schnabelhacken geht. Doch auch hier "entkörpert" sich die Improvisation, zerfasert. Die Lautstärke verrinnt und schnarrende, schwellende Töne verbleiben, Trompete und Gitarre zersetzen fast schon psychedelisch den tonalen Raum. So geht es fort. "Graft" ist ein lautmalerisches Thema, "Sliver" ein sehr aktives, aber eher knarzige Einzeltöne sammelndes Atonalstück, das 17-minütige "Measure" ein Klangrausch melancholisch-zerfahrener Natur und "Time, not tide" die fast schon melodische Variante der atonalen Musik des Quartetts.
Musik zwischen Stille und Lärm findet auf "Tunnel" einen improvisativen Klangraum, einen abstrakten Ausdruck, was vor 20 Jahren so nicht möglich gewesen wäre. Die Musiker mit dieser Intention hätten vor 30 Jahren FreeJazz gespielt und vor 20 Jahren wahrscheinlich zwischen NoWave und Electronic gearbeitet, doch die Übungsphasen freier, improvisativer Musik sind vorüber gegangen und aller Lärm, Krach, alle tonalen Schocks sind ins Bewusstsein der Musiker, des Publikum geflossen und verarbeitet. Die neuen Töne improvisativer Musik, die Labels wie Circumvention und Accretions fördern, sind eher auf die Erfahrungen von Fred Frith und ähnlicher Künstler orientiert, die Instrumente wieder hör- und erlebbar machen und Stille und Sanftheit in allen dynamischen und erregten Themen zulassen und konkret fördern. Musik, die sich selbst beendet? Mitnichten, sondern eine äußerst interessante und kluge Musik, die eher einen Ausweg bietet, die verstopften Sinne freizumachen einlädt und mit eigenständiger, selbstbewusster Klangcollage entschädigt. Längst kein Einheitsbrei, kein diffuses Gewusel, keine langweiligen Allgemein-Notationen, sondern erstaunlich lyrisches Instrument neuer improvisativer Musik. Bleibt potentiellen Hörern nur, sich auf das Experiment einzulassen.
Eine interessante Erfahrung ist "Tunnel" allemal."
Volkmar Mantei Ragazzi http://www.ragazzi-music.de/okeefe.html

"Circumvention is not the most conventional label, or rather tend away from the mainstream. Always reliable to come up with something interesting and challenging, they have brought together the deft talents of PAT O'KEEFE (clarinet, bass clarinet), JASON STANYEK (fretless & quarter-tone guitars), SCOTT WALTON (piano & bass) and GLEN WHITEHEAD (trumpet). The result is a strange and pacifying album, far closer to mood music than the instruments mentioned above might obviously suggest. They take fairly conventional instruments and 'play with', as opposed to simply 'play', them. So rather than a contrived and laboured attempt at tacking 'more of the same' onto the world of Avant Garde, they manage to conceive and birth something original and innovative. One of the troubles with this sort of experimentation is that it can miss just as often (or more so) than it can hit. Not here. Each of these journeys through the imagination seems to get every nuance of every moment just right.
As often strange and challenging as it is warm and welcoming, the journey through this album passes some worrying dark places. Like a winding, dimly-lit corridor dotted with portal windows looking down into pits where LOVECRAFTIAN beings dwell, there often seems a mind-twisting danger staying just out of reach. There's a great resonance to this sound - the music, far from being a stereo representation of a room / box, manages to uncoil itself out of the very speakers in octopus-tentacles of bright sound. Hearing the limitless collage of sounds they seem to weave from mainly acoustic instruments, it just goes to show how lazy electronic musicians really are. It reminds me, both in atmosphere and approach, of the project albums DAVID SYLVIAN and HOLGER CZUKAY created about ten years ago. Large, sprawling spatial things, full of atmosphere and ideas."
Metajour http://metajour.50megs.com/reviews/okeefepa/tunnel.htm


"The quartet of Pat O'Keefe (clarinet, bass clarinet), Jason Stanyek (fretless & quarter-tone guitars), Scott Walton (piano, bass) and Glen Whitehead (trumpet) formed in 1995 and the music on Tunnel, their second album, was recorded in 1999. There are 7 tracks, alternating between shorter 4-5 minutes pieces and lengthier workouts, and all improvised. Shorter tracks like "Threshold" and "Boundaries" show the quartet at their most aggressive. "Threshold" features tortured screeching and scratched strings and intense sonic noise-rock textures matching wits with lighter whimsical horn and wind segments. And on "Boundaries" the musicians surprised me by cranking out a cacophonous, freaked out, punkish, space fest. This is one of those tracks that makes me realize why we love covering avant-garde free-improv music in a Space Rock zine.
"Trace" is a standout track that opens with slowly developing drones and atmospherics that have an avant-garde symphony hall quality, with the strings performing light dances and the clarinet and trumpet moaning and fluttering like a the howls of wind and wolves. I really felt at times like I was being swept across a harsh windswept landscape. The musical sensation was somewhere between Kronos Quartet and Carl Stallings overdosed on valium, and the lightest moments were often the most intense. We're talking major drones that vibrate in your skull while the clarinet, trumpet and piano are lulling you with a handful of notes that are low volume but intensely expressive statements. "Graft" begins similar to "Trace", but with more of a symphony feel. Trumpet and clarinet wail while the piano creates a deep concert hall intensity. But the mood shifts dramatically throughout the piece, including some freaky alien bits that sound like electronics are being used, though I'm guessing it's Stanyek's guitars. An enjoyable blend of jazz and classical influences incorporated into an experimental sound construction work, with an emphasis on mood and atmosphere. "Measure" is similar, though much more sparse and even more subtly intense, developing steadily throughout it's 17 minute length. At times we get even deeper into experimental sound construction territory, with a variety of techniques used to wrench all sorts of fun sounds from the instruments.
In summary, O'Keefe, Stanyek, Walton and Whitehead have created an absorbing set of improvs that focus equally on atmosphere and thoughtful sound creation within a freeform and free flowing jazz, classical and sometimes rock context."
Jerry Kranitz, Aural Innovations http://aural-innovations.com/2004/january/tunnel.html


“Le label californien Circumvention Music nous présente un album qui réunit Pat O’Keefe à la clarinette, Jason Staniek aux guitares, Scott Walton au piano et Glen Whitehead à la trompette. Tunnel s’annonce comme une introspection électroacoustique d’une rare intensité. Les improvisations s’ouvrent à des espaces et laissent le champ libre aux inventivités les plus audacieuses.
Des phrasés se construisent, des notes jaillisent, des échanges se créent continuellement dans cet album au sujet duquel Wadada Leo Smith souligne, dans les liner notes, la portée "motionelle, intellectuelle, expérimentale et philosophique".
Un enregistrement-trace qui ravira les plus exigeants en matière de musique improvisée. Les quatre musiciens sont parvenus à inscrire leur discours instantané dans un registre où le don de soi se vit comme la condition sine qua non du travail de l’artiste."
Sabine Moig in Jazzosphère (F) #21

All compositions by O'Keefe, Stanyek, Walton and Whitehead.
Produced, recorded and mixed by O'Keefe, Stanyek, Walton and Whitehead.
Recorded July-August 1997 at the University of California San Diego in La Jolla, California.

When Patrick O'Keefe, Jason Stanyek, Scott Walton and Glen Whitehead first formed their quartet, they could not have had any inkling of the rapidity with which their group musical conception would grow to maturity. At one moment brash and brassy, at the next tenderly reflective, able to leap from micro- to macro-structural levels in a single bound, the flow of collectivity presented here on this, the group's first released recording, signals the very beginning of an artistic journey whose outcome I certainly don't want to lay bets on. With these musicians, on the cusp of the new millennium, anything can and probably will happen; I just want to be around to hear it.

If there's one lesson I hope we all learn before the Millennium Problem turns off the non-Macintosh computers for awhile, it is that neither people nor sounds are quite as respectful of divisions, borders, labels and categories as they once seemed to be. If we can't wrap even our ultra-sophisticated electronic brains around the millennial border, what do we expect our simple minds to do? As the neat universal morphologies of sound that John Cage so confidently presented in the 1950s seem to have already simultaneously fused and dispersed, we must now ask how sounds can be "just" sounds in themselves, if our own identities are so connected and yet so fragmented. If our histories as human beings can be so convoluted, wouldn't the sounds that we make and hear retain at least some of that historical complexity?

Improvised music, particularly work which displays the trenchancy and power that the four improvisors on this recording bring to bear, places these questions of personal history and sonic identity into sharp focus. This music seems to ponder the implications of what Yusef Lateef tells us: "The sound of the improvisation seems to tell us what kind of person is improvising. We feel that we can hear character or personality in the way the musician improvises."
Personality? You mean that sounds point to personalities?

Back in the 1950s, the dominant presumption seemed to be that some folks' personalities were better kept locked away, out of sight, in favor of the Big Story that we could all either point to with pride, or suffer with in silence. Perhaps science -better living through chemistry, or the promises made by the early Ronald Reagan about the wonders of Boulwarism-would make those messy, demanding, capricious personalities redundant. From that point, the perfect musical morphology would be found (in Europe, of course, right next to the cave paintings), and...
But that wasn't how it happened, was it? As Jacques Attali and Ornette Coleman would have it, music announces the shape of things to come, so that just a little while after the quiet, unlamented death of the "International Style"-a (possibly) unwitting musical instantiation of the multiregional evolution hypothesis-the DNA people showed us that although the Neanderthals were pretty cool, they weren't the ancestors of Europeans, or anybody else on the planet. So the eugenics crowd had to step back and recognize a common source of humanity-Africa, of all places. And you thought the Scopes trial was harrowing!

As late as the 1980s, aesthetic pundits strained to produce new "movements"-"totalism" was the last one I remember-which signaled (at least to some) yet another stale regression to instantiations of "Us" and "Them." But wonder of wonders, both the listening public and the musicians were way, way ahead, already crossing borders even before they were created. As soon as one pundit sought to create a new division, a whole crowd of people would already be found, their footprints quickly and gleefully erasing the lines drawn in the sand.

Like Sir Percival Lowell's 1930s discovery of the "canals" on Mars, these musical borderlines are proving absolutely chimerical to the pre-millennial ear. But if you zoom out a bit, a certain coming together of this crazy cross-hatching of so many cultural intersections is easily perceived. Well, how could this not be so, when so many of these borders seem absolutely identical in form and function, distinguishable only by the nature of the cheaply constructed fixities as to who is to be on which side?

So if we zoom in again, this time onto the individual personalities, they don't seem so threatening anymore. Unlike Cage, I happen to like hearing people take turns telling their stories, as in the musics of my own African-American musical heritage, from the ring shout to the music of our own day. Even if, as with the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission, those stories might place you or those you love in an uncomfortable light, we need to listen to them; in fact, where I come from, music is supposed to involve truth. When improvisors play, we always assume that our fellow improvisors are finally saying what they really mean; after all, nobody's stopping us.
In improvised music, as we move beyond "structural hearing" toward engagement with a broader set of possibilities for musical experience, greater intimacy and understanding becomes our reward. Though each of the virtuoso musicians on this recording is capable of displaying strong individual personality and audacious, or better, bodacious improvisative sensibility, they have nonetheless chosen to harness these powerful personal energies in the construction of a new kind of collective music-making. In this light, Yusef Lateef's observations about character and personality, while perhaps directed at individual expression, also serve well as a description of the group's careful construction of a collective musical character, as diverse, and sometimes as difficult, as any we encounter in the rest of our everyday lives.

This character is naturally informed by the group members' great diversity of individual backgrounds and interests, ranging from music-making in the Brazilian music community of San Diego through working with composer and improvisor Wadada Leo Smith, to the grounding they all share, via extensive training in pan-European classical and contemporary forms, in performance, composition, microtonal theory and musicology.

It is this combination of diversity and individuality that forms part of the humanistic philosophy that Africans sometimes call ubuntu. Valorizing moral responsibility as the guarantor of both individual and collective liberty, ubuntu encourages a conception of what Samuel Floyd has called "individuality within the aggregate," where individual identity is grounded in its societal instantiation. I feel that it is this articulation of ubuntu that enables these musicians to accept the challenge of tackling, head-on, the age-old formal problem of integrating improvised and composed ways of knowing and doing-a "problem" which has come to seem less a question of creating an integrative formal conception, than a project of refusing the improv-compo binary itself. In its place, the hybrid musical space that this group is in the process of discovering celebrates multiplicity over symmetry, articulating diversity with responsibility, in the service of a complex collective unity that lies at the heart of the conception of ubuntu.

I recall that it was Coltrane who once said, "The more you know, the more you can create." This view of education, traditional in the African-American community, views education as an instrument of liberation--but Ellington went even further, perhaps to the heart of what these four musicians have created: "You need everything you can get. You need the conservatory, with an ear to what's happening in the streets." Certainly these four improvisors exemplify this imperative, and in doing so have created a set of liberatory pieces, drawing upon their individual personalities and experiences, their development of group understanding, and their omnivorous, yet mindful enunciation of sonic sharing.

George E. Lewis 29 August 1998 Civitella Ranieri Umbertide, Italy

"This CD was recorded at the University of California at San Diego; the musicians have worked with Leo Smith; George Lewis wrote the liner notes; and the CD is appearing on Vinny Golia's Nine Winds. Given all that, it's fairly safe to assume that the group is emerging from the West Coast academic music milieu. If so, it's a tremendous tribute to what's happening in current music education: O'Keefe, Stanyek, Walton, and Whitehead are all technically skillful players, individually unbeholden to stylistic models, and willing to pursue their own sounds and musical architecture.
The group's approach to sound production is as radical as their instrumentation, the eschewal of lead/rhythm divisions as significant as the absence of drums, saxophones, and conventional piano from their palette. While Whitehead and O'Keefe have a conventional mastery of trumpet and clarinet sounds, they're also skilled in extended split-tones that can blur their instruments into electronic fields or the gastro-intestinal system. Stanyek is a master of usually unheard pitches, whether they're from modified guitar or koto, and he uses electronics in ways that may suggest blues and funk dimensions or pure electronic music. Bassist Walton is an adept bassist, and his use of prepared piano can suggest both gamelan and electronics. The listening skills of the group are such that the overlapping solos of "Heboyoyo" evolve out of one another almost seamlessly, one musician's sound found deep within another. It's not unusual to "hear" instruments on this CD, like trombone, that just aren't there. That heightened consciousness of sound that the four musicians bring to this music means that it's almost always beautiful, and often beautiful in ways that you haven't likely heard before.
Compositional structures, whether planned or spontaneous, are very strong, with a keen sense of texture and architecture usually apparent. Some piece, like the long "Semi-Breakable Containers," are all fluid evolution with shifting densities, while others, like "Tenebrae" and "Sonia," are more spacious and deliberate, elaborated around certain repeating sounds and patterns from the guitar and prepared piano. The pieces feel like complete works, and each feels like it has a specific identity of its own.
It's always exciting (and rare) to hear a group of new musicians who are working at developing their own musical language, but it's more exciting still when they demonstrate the levels of individual and collective vision and accomplishment that are apparent on this CD. Highly recommended."
Stuart Broomer Cadence April, 1999

Bobby Bradford - trumpet
Frank Sullivan - piano
Scott Walton - bass
Billy Bowker - drums

Recorded live on November 11 1986 at the Thomas Center, Gainesville, Florida, by WUFT-FM.
All compositions by Bobby Bradford.

"A melodic player with a healthy sense of humor who has become more expressive through the years, Bobby Bradford really got a chance to stretch out on this fine session. Although pianist Frank Sullivan is essentially a bop player, he did a good job of keeping up during the more adventurous performances. Bassist Scott Walton (who has learned from the innovations of Charlie Haden) and drummer Billy Bowker were excellent in support. "Ashes" (a calypso version of "I Got Rhythm") and the mysterious "Woman" were the highpoints of this highly recommended disc."
Scott Yanow, All Music Guide

Woodwinds: Eric Barber, Vinny Golia, Emily Hay, Lynn Johnston
Trumpets: Dan Clucas, Kris Tiner
Euphonium and Valve-Trombone: Eric Sbar
Tuba: Mark Weaver
Prepared Acoustic Guitar: Ernesto Diaz-Infante
Electric Guitar/Electronics: G.E. Stinson
Organ/Theremin/Electronics: Wayne Peet
Contrabasses: Jim Connolly, Scott Walton
Drums: Billy Mintz, Richie West
Percussion: Brad Dutz
Conductor/Trumpet: Jeff Kaiser

Recorded live, December 8, 2001 at Ventura City Hall, Ventura, California

For reviews please check out http://www.pfmentum.com/ockodektet.html#Reviews

Vinny Golia: piccolo, C & alto flutes, sopranino, soprano and tenor saxophones, A clarinet and ocarina
Michael Pierre Vlatkovich: trombone
Nels Cline: electric guitar
Scott Walton: double bass
Alex Cline: drums

Recorded live at La Tentation Brussels on September 12, 2001(Disc One, track 1), at Auditorium Abdel Dubois Mons on September 13, 2001 (Disc One, tracks 2 > 5) and at De Werf Brugge on September 15, 2001 (Disc Two) by Jean-Marc Foussat
Remix and mastering by Jean-Marc Foussat on March 26 & 27, 2003
Produced by Vinny Golia & Jos Demol

For more information and reviews, please check out http://www.jazzhalo.com/cdintroframe.html

CONTACT: e-mail: swalton@ucsd.edu

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