François Houle / Alexander Hawkins / Har — You Have Options
The musical style is consistent with other music I've heard by Eisenstadt, a melodic form of jazz that none-the-less shares a lot in common with free jazz, with its elastic meter and thorough use of space. Lengthy figures patiently and carefully unwind, making unexpected dips into syncopation and refracting into new tonal pockets. One never knows where a piece will end up; whether it will be crescendo or decrescendo. The music is generally so non-linear and meandering that it's difficult to discern what might actually have been composed, rather than improvised on the fly.
I find myself having difficulty parsing the emotional direction of their playing on much of the album's first half. Certainly, Houle's scalar circling is locked perfectly in rhythm with Eisenstadt's brushed ostinati, but a strong feeling rarely rises out of the general ambiguity. Many of the solos are so long and filled with shifts that it seems the plot is lost. There is little grounding to the nebulous chordal clusters; the reason why each pitch would be chosen is not clear.
"Prayer" and its successor "Advice" are among the few moments of repetition. "Prayer" is a Satie-esque plaintive piano progression gently struck, and the mood here is clearly nostalgia and melancholy. "Advice" is Gershwin-esque in its feeling of summer day leisure, proudly dwelling upon the droning consonance of its central chord. For me, these are the highlights of the album, a hint of the tuneful lounge jazz record I really wanted to hear from this group.
Is it wrong that I find the most enjoyment out of the most straightforward elements they've employed, or that I feel most satisfied when they fall into the traditional roles of pianist as rhythm instrument and clarinet as soloist? It makes me feel a tad unfaithful to experimentalism and the avant garde, but the simple fact is that I can't as easily remember the other pieces, which never quite cohere into distinct shapes, and I was not effected by them in the same way. Even after I have studied the others more carefully, beginning to hear the structures underneath, I am still impressed with the directness of these two, "Prayer" and "Advice".
The pieces by classic composers are absolutely wonderful, from the subtle heady gradations of Ives' "Largo" to the wistful beauty of Andrew HIll's "Dusk", which should please any fan of classic modal material like "Kind of Blue". Houle's tone is luminous and smooth, filled with sensitivity and gentleness. His lovely solo section at the beginning of the piece makes me think I might actually enjoy a solo album of his more than this album, where I can feel the different players' ideas walking all over each other.
The brooding unease of title track "You Have Options, I Have A Lawyer" (penned by Eisenstadt) is certainly relatable enough, but I think this feeling of vague discomfort is all too easily achieved in the realm of dissonance and chromatic playing. The other Eisenstadt composition, "The Pitts", is all the more vague and convoluted, and falls flat to my ears.
Though it is stylistically similar in many ways, I did not ultimately enjoy this album as much as Harris Eisenstadt's bandleader albums like the "Canada Day" series or Recent Developments. This album is a hit and miss affair for me, with moments of poignant beauty interspersed with some rather confused outtakes. Ives' "Largo" and Hill's "Dusk" are nearly worth the admission price alone, but I don't get much out of the "balls out" cacophany of "Run Riot", outdone in intensity by countless ferocious free jazz ensembles, or the sluggish brood of "Art" or "The Pitts". All in all, I have great respect for the skills of these musicians, but feel that this is not their greatest recording.