| Discography of Joe Fonda | 2003 |
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Lineup
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Recorded in November 2003 live at the Outpost Performance Space in Albuquerque, New Mexico
Released April 25, 2006 by 482 Music [482-1045]
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CD Reviews
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June 5, 2006 by Daniel Spicer for One Final Note If it's possible to have a super-group in a musical form as marginalized as contemporary, creative, left-field jazz, then Conference Call is a pretty good contender. Bassist Joe Fonda has been playing with pianist Michael Jefry Stevens in the Fonda/Stevens Group for 20 years, as well as finding time to back Anthony Braxton; German reedsman Gebhard Ullmann is familiar face on the Leo label; and the band has operated something of a revolving drum-stool policy, bringing in big-hitters such as Matt Wilson, Han Bennink, and, more recently, George Schuller — though due to a scheduling conflict, the tour from which this Albuquerque, New Mexico performance is drawn features Gerry Hemingway behind the kit. From the get-go it's clear Hemmingway's keen to make an impression in his temporary role, storming into the opening number "29 Shoes" with a blistering, high-energy drum solo. In fact, this lengthy tune serves as something of a wake-up slap in the face, with all four musicians tearing it up in fine style: a hectic, disjointed head; dizzying, hard-swinging themes; frantic bass runs; Wayne Shorter-esque soprano acrobatics; prancing, chamber-jazz motifs; and playful drums that seem to be constantly trying to wrong-foot the breakneck vibe, only to fall back into line just when consistency's needed. As showcases of virtuosity and audacity go, it's a mightily impressive and enjoyable one — and one that marks this band out as a genuinely intelligent, restless, and searching unit that clearly deserves a wider audience. "Liquid Cage" is a more reflective affair, a limpid, watery sound-painting that features tumbling, waterfall piano, ghostly clouds of saxophone, and tactile, fingertip neck-work on the bass producing a kind of super-pizzicato effect like raindrops on an upturned bucket. The second half of the set finds an irrepressible groove breaking through, and Ullmann seems to pay homage to Archie Shepp's late-60s tenor work, with those unmistakable, fractured blues honks riding over the top of a gently lilting piano and bass riff on "Circle Dance", and even a hint of the mutant, stamping blues of Shepp's "Black Gypsy" showing up on "Marla Dr'ôle". For pure, modal fun though, the closing number "As I Wait", takes some beating: a catchy, ascending groove that pits dissolution against resolution, finding a joyful middle ground where chaotic drums flutter around the anchor of a soulful riff that somehow manages to feel both grounded and free. Conference Call, then, sounds like a band with one foot firmly in the Paris / Chicago axis of the late-60s BYG avant-garde sound and another keeping up to date with the tuneful, exploratory freedom of Wayne Shorter's recent celebrated quartet. Ask yourself this: is there anything about that equation that doesn't sound like a good thing? Reprinted with permission. Copyright © 2006 ONE FINAL NOTE and Daniel Spicer. All reviews written by Daniel Spicer → Overview of all CD/LP reviews and liner notes |
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April 23, 2006 by Jeff Dayton-Johnson for All About Jazz This November, 2003 Albuquerque date by Conference Call manages to produce (very satisfying) new variations on an old formula. The quartet, which sits comfortably somewhere between the hard outer edges of the mainstream and free improvisation, includes multiple reeds player Gebhard Ullmann and the leaders of the Fonda/Stevens Group. The drummer's chair has been subject to a non-lethal version of the Spinal Tap syndrome, occupied by a sequence of percussionists including Matt Wilson, George Schuller and Han Bennink; this time round, Gerry Hemingway takes the chair. The new guy sounds great. A few minutes into the first track, "29 Shoes" (what would one do with an odd number of shoes?), he produces the sound Jack DeJohnette was seeking but failed to achieve on the Miles Davis Cellar Door set: muscular and funky, but also open and polyrhythmic. His complicity with bassist Joe Fonda is delightful and structurally critical, given that each number is a progression of episodes demarcated by the rhythmic signature Fonda and Hemingway provide. Ullmann is all energy and ideas: he plays soprano, alto (I think) and tenor saxes, as well as bass clarinet, sounding a like a different musician on each, and all of his solos are long and dense. Pianist Michael Jefry Stevens can provide pianissimo accents but also raises the volume with Messiaen-like splendor in the magnificent opening minutes of "Liquid Cage." The set is framed by two relatively loud, mostly uptempo numbers; in between are three frequently quiet forays into the free. "Mala Dr'ole" in particular may be the least accessible but also the most successful cut. Over its course, the band works out all the inexorable consequences of the fading out of the initial blast of the angular, Anthony Braxton-like theme. "As I Wait," the closer, opens mysteriously and gives way to a hard, soulful motif, and Hemingway again calls upon his exhilarating high-volume skills. Why does this music sound so contemporary given that the musical innovations upon which it draws were established forty years ago? In part it's because of the context: stodgy mainstream jazz is busy working out even older musical innovations. But it's also fresh because Conference Call mixes these sonic elements — beautiful harmonies one minute, free squeaks the next — in an unapologetically ahistorical pastiche that few of the quartet's precursors would have allowed themselves. You get Pharaoh Sanders and Roscoe Mitchell playing together, Yvonne Loriod trading piano parts with Randy Weston. In that sense, the group's truest progenitor might be Archie Shepp (whom, incidentally, Ullmann resembles when he plays tenor). Like him, Conference Call seems to want to straddle both the freest outer reaches and the center of the jazz tradition. It's a combination that works to great effect on Live at the Outpost. Reprinted with permission. Copyright © 2006 All About Jazz and Jeff Dayton-Johnson. |
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July 15, 2006 by Kurt Gottschalk for All About Jazz Conference Call Fab Trio Although the Fonda-Stevens group is a strong band, bassist Joe Fonda is best known as a sideman. His first recording was with Wadada Leo Smith in 1983 and he spent much of the '90s working with Anthony Braxton. Fonda has also played in groups led by Walter Thompson, Kevin Norton and others. On two recent releases, both albeit by collective ensembles, he shows the two sides of being a sideman. Fonda has been a member of Conference Call - with saxophonist Gebhard Ullmann and pianist Michael Jefry Stevens - since the group's 2002 debut Final Answer (Soul Note). With the band's range of tones, he and a variety of drummers (Gerry Hemingway now fills the seat previously occupied by Matt Wilson and Han Bennink) are called upon to support driving, rhythmic tunes and slow, moody passages, often in the same piece. Across five tracks he does so with a mix of strength and deference, never pushing but always matching. On Stevens' "Circle Dance", he picks up a phrase from Ullmann and carries it as the horn slips into a short blues, then sidesteps slightly when Hemingway begins suggesting a soft rhythm on cymbals. It's the kind of subtlety that makes a band like Conference Call work. The trio with Billy Bang and Barry Altschul (FAB Trio) is an altogether different affair. Bang's violin is almost impossibly bright and Altschul pushes harder than Hemingway. Fonda rises to the challenge by making the band something of a string duo with drums. His big bull viol darts quickly around the violin, with Altschul seeming to revel in the pointillist rhythms. The group shares writing credits on four of the six songs and repeat Fonda's "Song for My Mother" from their 2003 debut [Transforming the Space] on CIMP. Violins are as formidable sparring partners as saxophones and it's sometimes hard to aim your ears at the rest of the band. But in both cases and with two exceptional groups, Fonda finds his way through. Reprinted with permission. Copyright © 2006 All About Jazz and Kurt Gottschalk. All reviews written by Kurt Gottschalk → Overview of all CD/LP reviews and liner notes |
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Bruce Lee Gallanter for Downtown Music Gallery This is the fourth Conference Call disc and each one has had a different drummer. Previous drummers include Han Bennink, Matt Wilson and George Schuller and each one brings something different to the sound of this feisty quartet. This disc is live from the Outpost in Albuquerque, New Mexico in November of 2003. Gebhard's "29 Shoes" opens and features Gerry erupting around the repeating groove. Joe Fonda sings along with has propulsive bass as Gebhard takes a strong soprano solo while Mr. Stevens fans the flames with his spirited piano. It is hard to tell that this is the first recording with Hemingway on drums, since he plays so marvelously, the pulse moving tightly in waves speeding up and slowing down organically. "Liquid Cage" begins with Mr. Stevens' spacious and haunting piano, then some contemplative bass clarinet from Gebhard and one of those magical, exquisite bass solos from Mr. Fonda as Gerry adds some eerie percussion sounds, until the quartet slowly ascend together like ghosts in a graveyard. Stevens' "Circle Dance" is a lovely ballad with sublime tenor, a delicate rhythm team bubbling underneath. "Mala Dr'ole" is an odd, quirky piece keeps starting and stopping, fluttering duos that move together freely, connecting is they move. Joe Fonda's "As I Wait", brings things to close with slow moving, dreamscapes that simmer and sizzle and build to an enchanting, hypnotic groove. Conference Call does it again, brings us together with them for a great ride. Reprinted with permission. Copyright © 2006 Downtown Music Gallery and Bruce Lee Gallanter. All reviews written by Bruce Lee Gallanter → Overview of all CD/LP reviews and liner notes |
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November 23, 2006 by Herbert Federsel for Jazzdimensions 1997 kam es zu ersten Kontakten zwischen dem Berliner Saxofonisten/Bassklarinettisten Gebhard Ullmann und dem New Yorker Pianisten Michael Jefry Stevens. Schon bald sollte das gemeinsame Bandprojekt Conference Call entstehen. Mit von der Partie der Bassist Joe Fonda und Matt Wilson, Schlagzeug. Eine reguläre Working Band war geboren, ein Ensemble, das längst zu den interessantesten der internationalen Szene zählt. Mehrere CDs entstanden, u.a. die live aufgenommenen Variations on a Master Plan, auf der Han Bennink den verhinderten Wilson ersetzt und Spirals, The Berlin Concert. Auch auf Live at the Outpost Performance Space ist Wilson nicht mit dabei, sondern Gerry Hemingway. Eine gute Idee, den hohen Standart des Quartetts erneut live zu dokumentieren. Gerade in der Konzertatmosphäre spürt man, wie dicht sich das Bandgeflecht entwickelt hat, wie dicht und homogen das Zusammenspiel ist, wie reich der Ideenfundus. Die Musik lebt von Reibungen und stilistischen Brüchen, großen expressiven Bögen, dynamischen Wandlungen, aber vor allem von der Qualität seiner Protagonisten. Conference Call sind Teil der fruchtbaren New Yorker Avantgardeszene und doch auch der Jazztradition verpflichtet. Freies steht neben vertrackten Groovesequenzen. Der 2005 im Downbeat als "rising star" gelistete Gebhard Ullmann schafft es, mit nur wenigen Tönen auf dem Tenorsaxofon Reminiszenzen an Ben Webster oder Archie Shepp zu wecken und ist doch sein ganz eigener Mann. Besonders eindrucksvoll in Stevens hypnotischem Circle Dance zu hören. Punktgenau in seiner Präsenz wie immer Joe Fonda. In der meisterhaften Eleganz seines polyrhythmischen Spiels und dem Erfindungsreichtum an Klangfarben und rhythmischen Mustern ist Gerry Hemingway ein Glücksfall unter den heutigen Schlagzeugern. Einzig die eher etwas bescheidene Aufnahmetechnik trübt den Eindruck dies Albums. Reprinted with permission. Copyright © 2006 Jazzdimensions and Herbert Federsel. |
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Chris Kelsey for JazzTimes, published in the July/August 2006 issue
The ways of swing are many and varied, as demonstrated by this superb quartet of leftward-leaning jazz folk. Conference Call consists of saxophonist Gebhard Ullmann, pianist Michael Jefry Stevens, bassist Joe Fonda and drummer Gerry Hemingway. Recorded live at Albuquerque's Outpost Performance Space at the end of a 2003 tour, this album reflects a band steeped in the history of small group jazz, while dedicated to exploring fresh possibilities. Reprinted with permission. Copyright © 2006 JazzTimes and Chris Kelsey. All reviews written by Chris Kelsey → Overview of all CD/LP reviews and liner notes |
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Glen Hall for EXCLAIME!, published June 2006 Formed in 1997, this transoceanic collaborative quartet has developed a distinctive music that allows its members to delve into a host of approaches in real depth: rollicking swing, raucous rants, moody fogginess. From the very first tune, "Conference Call," penned by reed virtuoso Berlin-based Ullmann, the group lay it down with authority. Despite the absence of regular drummer George Schuller, when you've got Gerry Hemingway subbing, you're unlikely to suffer musically. And Gerry seriously rocks out, contributing the first blazing solo, only to be followed by a blistering, snaky soprano solo by Ullmann. This group understand the importance of pacing, as the second piece by NYC pianist Stevens' "Liquid Cage" provides a delicate impressionistic contrast, replete with an engrossing extended bass solo by Joe Fonda, who is a magnificent unflagging foil for his colleagues throughout the entire CD. Echoes of Anthony Braxton can be heard in Ullmann's "Mala Dr'ôle," a spiky theme of pungent leaping intervals and jagged phrases, interrupted by a jaunty, off-kilter march and out-of-tempo improv. Bluesy "As I Wait" by Fonda closes the set with Ullmann switching to tenor as the group range far and freely. Recorded live at the venerable Outpost in Albuquerque, NM, Conference Call is another solid release on Mike Lintner's 482 Music that continues to document worthwhile projects that fly under the radar of other labels in the genre. Reprinted with permission. Copyright © 2006 EXCLAIME! and Glen Hall. All reviews written by Glen Hall → Overview of all CD/LP reviews and liner notes |
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