Available Now! Rhythm Abstraction: Ruby - Frank Macchia and drummer Brock Avery have created a new EP as a completion of their trilogy Rhythm Abstraction: Azure and Rhythm Abstraction: Gold. 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.

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 artist Tracy London on vocals.

Dogmented

Slither

Impending Doom

CREDITS

Rhythm Abstraction: Ruby is the third and final 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. Ruby is the third of three extended play albums of 7 compositions which will be released starting in January and followed up in April and July. In Ruby 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, Slither is a bluesy, New Orleans second line feel piece where Brock laid down a groove and I simply followed with whatever blues melodies came to mind in the moment. I played just saxophones, clarinets and flutes with no other keyboards so this is truly a drum/woodwind “duet” and I used the soprano sax as the main solo instrument. I used a lot of Duke Ellington voicing concepts in this one and Brock’s drumming guided me throughout.

I came up with the title Dogmented as the piece was based on a "double augmented triad" as I call it, with C, E and G# and then above it B, D#, and F##. These six notes comprised all the vertical voicings in variations and transpositions. It's a fast paced intense rhythmic adventure that starts with an irregular tom pattern and a “wah-wah” effected alto sax solo that changes feel half way through going into a fast intense swing feel with a flute solo. Since the tune had the word “dog” in it I created a little video on YouTube that showcases the escapades of my dog Cloud as she runs and struts to the music!

Apparitions starts with lush voicings accompanying Brock's dancing cymbals and bells. This ends up as a waltz and the voicings and feel reminded me of floating ghosts based on Brock's brush work. A heavy usage of bass flutes and clarinets attempt to convey the ghostly quality of the dense chords along with the soprano sax’s solo, followed by a group of bass flutes collectively swirling freely over Brock’s dancing drums. I hope you feel the mystery in this one.

Continuing in the tradition of Piglets On A Trampoline from the Rhythm Kaleidoscope project, Gerbil Juggling is the follow up to that bouncy ditty! Once again Brock mesmerizes with his complex rhythms interpreting what it would sound like to hear a group of gerbils be juggled, getting more and more complex in the juggling. A heavily effected alto clarinet solo ensues after a jagged introduction over a slightly “bent” samba section and then wraps up with more “juggling” and a final ascending chord as the gerbils get tossed upwards but never land!

I asked Brock to do a solo that was dark and abstract and Impending Doom is what he came up with. A lot of low bass and contrabass clarinets work along with a group of prepared piano samples. I hope we achieved the abstract and dark quality we so wanted to express, especially in these weird and scary times. The alto clarinet is the soloist again on this piece. I particularly love Brock’s tom-tom work on this piece – foreboding!!

Acceleration was a second take of the concept of starting a piece with no click and then having Brock just get faster and faster and more intense. The first take ending up being Impatience from Rhythm Abstraction: Gold, the second volume of this trilogy. Both takes were so good I felt I had to write music to both solos and they ended up quite different from each other. I do a piccolo solo early on then go to an extremely distorted alto sax solo, where I tried to channel my best Jimi Hendrix impression. The piece ends in a frenzy as you’d expect.

The final track of this project is Hallucination which I composed to Brock's dazzling use of cymbals and bells and I added a lot of orchestral sounds to this one. The bass flute plays the theme early on and then the orchestra follows Brock’s journey through the wild rhythms in his head! More intense electrified bass flute soloing continues as Brock alternates between soft and crazy drumming and flute flurries build to a final climax where the bass flute ends our journey with the questioning melody statement.

Brock and I hope you've enjoyed our rhythm and sound explorations for the last three volumes on this series. We have tried to create something which while not the "normal" music experience, we hope the music entertained and took your mind off the day to day life we live and took you on a new sound journey! Thank you so much for listening to our ideas. We are eternally grateful!

-Frank Macchia July 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.

Cover Design: Peter Macchia

Mastering: Rich Breen

TRACK LISTING:

1. (4:21) Slither 2. (2:27) Dogmented 3. (5:14) Apparitions 4. (2:23) Gerbil Juggling

5. (2:50) Impending Doom 6. (2:24) Acceleration 7. (4:39) Hallucination

REVIEWS

Frank Macchia / Brock Avery: Rhythm Abstraction: Ruby

By Dan McClenaghan
July 11, 2020

AllAboutJazz.com

Multi-instrumentalist Frank Macchia released his full length CD Rhythm Kaleidoscope (Cacophony Records) in 2018. The compositions were created over a foundation of Brock Avery's multi-layered improvised drum and percussion solos, with Macchia orchestrating a sea of woodwinds and synthesizer sounds, some brass and some prepared piano samples, resulting in a lush and feisty twenty-first century jazz-classical-fusion hybrid of the highest order. This mode of operation apparently caught his fancy. He follows up in 2020 with a three EP set—released between January and July of 2020—of music made in the same mode: Rhythm Abstraction: Gold (January release), Rhythm Abstraction: Azure (April release), and July's Rhythm Abstraction: Ruby, all on Cacophony Records.

Ruby opens with "Slither," as bluesy as it can get, featuring clarinets, saxophones and flutes over Avery's grooves. The vibe is similar to Duke Ellington's "Malletoba Spank," the opener of Ellington Jazz party (Columbia, 1959), a "let's see what happens" sound with the Ellington Orchestra playing over nine inspired percussionists. Macchia, for his part, creates a much denser soundscape, taking the fun and the "out there" feeling to a higher level, while only using one percussion guy, Brock Avery, who sounds like nine guys...or more.

"Dogmented" features a wah-wah augmented alto sax, followed by super swing feel with a flute solo inside an intense rhythmic adventure, while "Apparitions," with its lush voicings accompanying Avery's "dancing cymbals and bells" and floating brush work. Then there's "Juggling Gerbils." And for those who don't know what the small rodents sound like when in the process of getting tossed, one after another, into the air, this is it. Which leads to the supposition that the tunes, in such an improvisational mode, were tagged, surely, with the titles somewhere along in the process—after orchestrations had gelled up. This thought, run by Macchia, received the reply: "Yes, you're entirely correct!" Though he added that he'd prefer not to be called Shirley.

There's a real sense of Avery and Macchia---in the manner of Dizzy Gillespie—being serious about their music, without seeing any reason why they can't have fun making it. "Juggling Gerbils" could fit into the madcap whimsey of a cartoon soundtrack, like Walt Disney's Fantasia (1940). Mickey Mouse could be the juggler; Donald duck could chase the fuzzy runaways when they are dropped.

On the other hand, we have "Impending Doom," with the low bass and contrabass clarinets painting a dark and foreboding soundscape—maybe one of the gerbils from the previous tune is really a newborn badger cub, and Momma is coming around the corner.

Ruby closes with "Hallucination," perhaps the most beautiful and the most orchestral and classical sounding tune of the set, wrapping up an enthralling journey.

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