Steve Swell's Fire Into Music — For Jemeel - Fire From The Road (2004 - 2005)

Here’s a colossal three CD set from RogueArt, collecting several live recordings from Steve Swell's Fire Into Music, a quartet who explore freely but remain in recognisably jazz territories. The ensemble consists of: Steve Swell on trombone, Jemeel Moondoc on alto saxophone, William Parker on double bass, and Hamid Drake on drums. The recordings were made between 2004-2005, in Texas and Ontario, and have been released in memory of Moondoc, who passed away in August 2021 from complications of sickle cell anaemia. It is a large set, and dense with it, so I won’t attempt any kind of close review, rather I’ll just sketch out an overview of the album.

It is a sprawling beast, not in a sense of being wayward, or uncontrolled or badly crafted, but purely in terms of size. Each disc contains around an hour of music, and the first disc is indeed one long live piece of 55 minutes. ‘Improvised Music at the El Dorado’ is - helpfully, given its duration - a very structured work, beginning with a stately group theme, after which Moondoc’s slow and steady sax expands, accompanied by busy, angular drumming from Drake. Swell enters the fray next, before passing the baton to Parker who extensively explores a long bass solo, largely bowed and really raising the piece. Things raise again near the half hour mark, as the ensemble coalesce around some skronky playing; Drake has a solo section next, and it’s superlative, particularly in its use of polyrhythms, with real propulsion and bounce, and indeed the end section of the piece has similarly danceable rhythms, verging on ska beats.

The second disc, recorded in Marfa, Texas, has three separate tracks. The first, ‘Junka Nu’, is nearly twenty minutes long, and commences with a nice grooved opening, leading to spiralling saxophone and some dense interplay between the bass and drums; I could say it’s (Ornette) Coleman-esque, but you’re at the mercy of my grounding in jazz. There’s also some bustling trombone from Swell, and an effective galloping, or lurching, group passage. ’Improvised Music at Ballroom Marfa’ begins with a rounded little introduction from Swell, before the group launch into an often knotty improv that finally explodes into a hardboiled groove with a really tight bass line - it’s practically fusion. Drake and Parker lead here, and again there are sections which raise the volume and introduce dancing grooves; Drake really goes for it near the end, and it’s a definite highlight of the set. The final recording from Marfa, ‘Space Cowboys’, again has sections of real groove in it, featuring a striding bass from Parker; I perhaps wasn’t expecting so much overtly ‘fun’ material after the first disc, but it’s here and it’s welcome.

The third and final disc starts with the aptly named ‘Box Set’, a twenty-minute workout with darting sax, pulsing bass, blaring trombone, and skittering drums; rhythmically the track chops and changes, with Drake and Parker shining In fact, the whole piece cycles through a variety of differing sections, displaying real control of dynamics and space, but the high point - of the whole set really - is a short passage around the 15 minute mark, where Parker and Drake gradually speed up a very primitive bassline and beat until it becomes an intricate, detailed burst of kinetic energy - it’s simultaneously breathtaking and comic. After that, there’s another version of ‘Junka Nu’, which again produces some thorny improvisation; interestingly, during solo spots the instruments appear to be mic’d closer, or perhaps just the gains of the mics are increased, giving a close up sound that adds unexpected - and perhaps distracting - textures to the piece. The final work of the CD set, ‘Swimming in a Galaxy of Goodwill and Sorrow’, has some dirge like passages near the start, but again develops into a series of interlocking sections that display the group’s ability to alter colour and rhythm; and again, Drake and Parker provide some great moments. The set ends with Swell introducing each member of the band, a touching farewell to Moondoc.

This is a nice blend of pretty hardboiled improvisations rooted firmly in jazz, coupled with more grooving ensemble passages that are high energy and call to your feet. The only issue there is that if you want the latter, you’ll have to accept the former, and that may or may not test your ears. All four musicians present accomplished performances, though my ears are drawn to the interplay between Parker and Drake, though, to be fair, this is as much a reflection of their playing as it is my preference for listening to rhythm sections. It’s an extensive set, covering lots of ground, and a lot to take in, but aficionados of free, or merely adventurous, jazz will find a world to dig into here