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Rhythm Abstraction: Azure / Frank Macchia
Available Now! Rhythm Abstraction: Azure - Frank Macchia and drummer Brock Avery have created a new group of music as a follow-up to their first project Rhythm Kaleidoscope. Taking improvised drum solos that Brock created, Frank has created stream of consciousness music compositions around the drums that create more New Music Masterpieces! Featuring over 40 woodwinds and a bevy of brass, keyboards and string accompaniment this album continues the sound collage of psychedelic proportions! This is a 7 song EP and will be followed by two more EP volumes later this year.
Jazziz Magazine states "Frank Macchia is an inventive composer and arranger who deserves comparisons to Gil Evans and Pat Metheny." Three time Grammy nominated and National Endowment of the Arts recipient Macchia produced the project and is featured on saxes and woodwinds, with guest artists Alex Iles, Tracy London and Eric Jensen.
Balinese Butterflies
Echopraxia
Emma's Dilemma
CREDITS
Rhythm Abstraction: Azure is the first volume of new compositions created as a follow up to our 2018's release Rhythm Kaleidoscope. As with that release, Brock Avery improvised drum and percussion solos. I then composed music for woodwinds and orchestra to Brock's creations. Azure is the first of three extended play albums of 6-7 compositions which will be released starting in January and followed up in April and July.
In Azure we have a created a group of pieces that continue our quest for honoring the art of improvisation with a "stream-of-consciousness" sense of composition, where I reacted to whatever Brock created with his drum improvisations and continued to pursue the use of tone rows and motifs to create a music journey that ebbs and flows with the rhythm and takes the listener on a journey through rhythm and sound.
The opener, Echolalia is an intense ride through several meters but the main riff is in 7/4, and uses a tone row of G, A, Bb, C, C#, D, Eb, F and F#. The harmony is derived from that row as well. Echolalia is a speech phenomenon that involves the imitation of words or sounds and the concept here was to use the tone row based on Brock's rhythms and repeat and permeate with the tone row. The heavily effected alto sax solo reacts to the repetitive music figures in the second half of the piece.
Balinese Butterflies was a fascinating solo by Brock where he used chopsticks to perform on the drums and played at a really intense frantic pace (check out the YouTube video of this to seem him in action). As I listened to the drum solo I imagined a group of Balinese Gamelan musicians performing to this drum solo, and I used two Balinese Gamelan scales concurrently in the creation of the music, using a "minor scale" of C, Db, Eb, G and Ab against a "major scale" of C, D, F#, G and B, but offsetting them in different octaves so the clash and dissonance would be less intense. This also features an alto sax solo and what's interesting to me is that the melodies created seem very lyrical and sweet.
With a very different vibe, Emma's Dilemma started with Brock doing a fun pattern with woodblocks and it struck me as a comical romp, so I used a three note motif of Eb, C, E and the whole piece is based on developing that motif, along with a descending chromatic minor chord bridge pattern. This one felt like it needed an alto clarinet solo to keep the comical energy going and Brock ended with a bold rock feel that I did my best to support!
I asked Brock to do a bluesy swing feel for one of the drum improvisations and he performed what would become Last Call, as it reminded me of the last tune a bar band might play before closing the set. This features Eric Jensen on guitar and Alex Iles on trombones, both of whom tore this up. The instrumentation is very big band-like and I took extensive liberties in the blues scale throughout, calling on my love of Ellington to thicken the harmonic richness.
I don't really know how Madness! came to be other than listening to Brock's insane drum solo and realizing that it was simply crazy so I came up with a motif of A, Ab, Gb, Eb, and F and the rest just kind of emerged out of the blue! Another alto clarinet solo on this one.
Brock used some really cool metal plates and swirled them in a nice stereo panning motion at the beginning of Dreams Of Salvador Dali's Llama, and trying to be true to the surrealistic artist I just reacted to Brock's drumming and after the lush flute choir at the top we moved into a kind of jazz abstract solo section with tenor sax using bitonality with augmented major 7 chords with a bass pattern a minor sixth below as well as minor major 7 chords with bass notes a major third below. Anyway, I liked the sound of these chord structures and felt they moved nicely from one to another.
We round out this first volume with Panoply, which means "a splendid display or an impressive collection of things". This was a lot of fun to figure out, as Brock did a most impressive solo that ran quite the gamut of feels and ideas. It was daunting to figure out how to react and compose to it. The initial tone row is B, Bb, Gb, F, Db, C, Ab, G, E, Eb, A and D but I constantly modulate the row to different keys as Brock changes feels and rhythm ideas. The opening minute or so is basically an introduction to the piece, kind of an overture if you will, then a groove emerges at about a minute in and an alto clarinet solo begins as Brock does a jungle-like tom pattern. Then a dream-like pattern begins which goes astray and as the last section begins with a choir chant by Tracy London (using a permutation of the tone row using inversions and retrograde), the alto clarinet continues to embellish the ensemble to a grand conclusion.
Brock and I hope you enjoy our latest foray into the world of wild and strange music and hope you'll come back to hear volume 2 in a few months, featuring more sonic mayhem!
Thanks, Frank Macchia January, 2020
ALBUM CREDITS
Brock Avery: Drum solo composition, Drum set and percussion, including New and Old Drums, Pandeiros, Frame Drums, Tambourines, Pods, Shinclang, Slitdrums, Buffetonium, Pipanafone, Cymbals, Stackers, Bulb Horn, Varied Sticks, Brushes, Mallets, and on and on.
Frank Macchia: Melodic/harmonic music composition, orchestrations, mixing and woodwinds, including Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Baritone Saxophones, Bass Saxophone, Piccolo, Flute, Alto Flute, Bass Flute, Contrabass Flute, Bb Clarinet, Eb Alto Clarinet, Bb Bass Clarinet, Bbb Contrabass Clarinet, and numerous ethnic flutes and whistles.
Alex Iles: Trombone-Bass Trombone (on Last Call)
Eric Jensen: Electric Guitar (on Last Call)
Tracy London: Vocals (on Panoply)
Cover Design: Peter Macchia
Mastering: Rich Breen
TRACK LISTING:
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1. (2:23) Echopraxia 2. (3:11) Balinese Butterflies 3. (4:27) Emma's Dilemma 4. (3:37) Last Call |
5. (2:44) Madness! 6. (3:05) Dreams of Savador Dali's Llama 7. (4:42) Panoply |
REVIEWS
Frank Macchia & Brock Avery: Rhythm Abstraction: Azure
By Dan McClenaghan
February 2, 2020
Reedman-arranger-composer Frank Macchia didn't take the conventional route in putting his EP Rhythm Abstractions: Azure together. He didn't get a huge orchestra in one studio, pass out the charts and explain to the players what he was trying to do. What he did was pare the personnel down to a minimum and turn drummer Brock Avery loose for some serious improvisation time. Then Macchia layered in a whole bunch of reeds—piccolo, flutes (alto, bass, contrabass), clarinets (alto, bass, contrabass), saxophones (soprano, alto, baritone, bass), ocarinas...
The music germinates, with Avery's stream-of-consciousness percussion mode giving way to Macchia's improvisational reponses, married to the patient meticulousness required to record dozens of layers of the individual reeds and more percussion contributions.
Beginning with "Echopraxia" (the title referring to an involuntary repetition or imitation of another person's movements), the sound plays in a manner similar to an expansive soundtrack to a frenetic and perhaps surreal movie scene. Macchia employs a tone row here (G, A, Bb, C, C#,D, Eb, F and F#). The music is lush and busy, a beautiful assault on the senses. "Balinese Butterflies" goes with a minor scale against a major scale. It sounds like a hundred percussionists in the swirling sea of reeds in an ominous theme from a jungle scene—a lost island teeming with prehistoric reptiles, or perhaps a giant ape, with butterflies fluttering about his head.
"Emma's Dilemma" exudes a majestic whimsy, a score for a bumbling protagonist in an early twentieth century black-and-white movie, and "Last Call" (featuring Eric Jensen on electric guitar, Alex Iles on trombone) sounds like bluesy, after-midnight accompaniment to a scene where the detective shambles down a dark alley, into bad company.
There are seven tunes here, clocking in at about twenty-five minutes of complex and riveting jazz classical fusion. Frank Macchia and Brock Avery plan two more similar EPs in 2020. If they follow in the mode of Azure, we will have three succinct sets of sounds which ebb and flow with the rhythm, offering an edifying and satisfying musical journey. Track Listing: Echopraxia; Balinese Butterflies; Emma's Dilemma; Last Call; Madness!; Dreams of Salvadore Dali's Llama; Panoply.
Personnel: Frank Macchia: composer, arranger, saxophones, clarinets, flutes, synthesizers, ethnic flutes & whistles; Brock Avery: composer, drum set, percussion; Alex Iles: trombone; Eric Jensen: electric guitar; Tracy London: vocals.
