When I first heard Andrew Hill’s Smokestack, which features both Eddie Khan and Richard Davis playing upright bass at the same time, a piano quartet with two basses, I realized that when jazz is played cacophonously and far from tight, it can be just as beautiful. Smokestack was a staple for me because Hill was veering away from writing classic themes when all the other cats were trying to find new ways to write them. Instead, he created these walls-of-sound which seem to be following a set of loose rules as opposed to the no-rules rule of free-jazz.
Jesse Zubot’s Fond of Tigers is a bit more Don Caballero than Andrew Hill, however, math-rock and classic jazz do converge and the results are often way too much fun to ignore. A Thing To Live With is absolutely a wall-of-sound album. In many cases, songs develop by piling repeated melodies on top of each other, in others, the entire band might be patching together completely different lines. With ambient loops and instrumental textures that begin and end most of the songs, there is this sense of placelessness that the tension created by jagged rhythms and awkward time-signatures serves to make even worse.
On the title track, Zubot’s echoed violin flutters angelically, resembling the avant-metalic resonations of a bowed-saw. After three introductory songs that drive like Lightning Bolt, this tune’s calm change of pace really shows off the versatility of these instrumentalists. With interpretive cymbal and tom rolls, it sounds like a great empire has fallen in slow motion and the heads of the king and queen are swaying on wooden posts high in the air.
One of the more amusing elements of this album is that there are two songs with the same name separated by the placement of a comma. To assume that they are two parts of the same song might be underestimating their goofiness. But the second, “Here You Are, Hated” is this punk-jazz, time-signature-flopping stomp with no holes or room to breathe. It’s 7 minutes of tension and I believe its supposed to embody their commitment to writing impermeable, difficult compositions that are more for the challenge of the listener than the satisfaction of the band. In a way, you’d never be able to argue that that isn’t avant-garde.
