Conference Call
«Poetry In Motion»

• Gebhard Ullmann - reeds
• Michael Jefry Stevens - piano
• Joe Fonda - bass
• Gerge Schuller - drums

1. The Shining Star (Ullmann)
2. Poetry In Motion (Stevens)
3. The Path (Fonda)
4. Next Step (Fonda)
5. Back To School (Schuller)
6. Quirky Waltz (Stevens)
7. Desert... Bleue... East (Ullmann)

CD Reviews

• Troy Collins for All About Jazz
• Stef Gijssels for his blog
• Bruce Lee Gallanter for Downtown Music Gallery
• Clifford Allen for Bagatellen
• Budd Kopman for All About Jazz
• Vincenzo Roggero for All About Jazz Italia Italian language
• Yahvé M. de la Cavada for Tomajazz  Spanish language
• Massimo Ricci for Touching Extremes
• Michael G. Nastos for All Music Guide
• Karen Hogg for All About Jazz NY

Troy Collins for All About Jazz, published August 11, 2008

Poetry in Motion is the fifth album from the collective, Conference Call, and their first studio recording since their debut, Final Answer (Soul Note, 2002). The longstanding quartet, together since 1998, features German multi-reedist Gebhard Ullmann, pianist Michael Jefry Stevens, bassist Joe Fonda and recent drummer George Schuller (former drummers include Han Bennink and Matt Wilson).

Throughout the last decade, Conference Call has straddled the tenuous line between free jazz and post bop, drawing on the distinctive writing styles of its members to chart unexplored paths. Each composer's singular voice is identifiable within the confines of the group's sound, yet each tune is subtly transformed by the quartet, yielding a thematically cohesive session.

The group's longevity enriches their highly intuitive rapport. A ten year working relationship between the principal members, Stevens and Fonda share an additional partnership that dates back to 1993, when they formed the ever evolving Fonda/Stevens group.

Ullmann, the group's sole horn player, is a vivacious and dynamic stylist who invests serene ballads with the same heartfelt conviction as tempestuous free-form workouts. His sinuous soprano cadences, brawny tenor testimonials, and intervallic bass clarinet leaps offer a range of emotion.

Over the course of seven distinctive tunes, the quartet's inside/outside approach invokes the halcyon days of the '60s New Thing. Fonda's inclusions demonstrate the quartet's dynamic range; "The Path" is a restrained ballad of mellifluous tenderness, while "Next Step" is the inverse. Born in darkness, the tune gains brisk momentum with Fonda and Schuller's roiling palpitations, which fuel a swirling vortex of sound courtesy of Ullmann's caterwauling bass clarinet and Stevens' spiky piano clusters.

Much of the quartet's brio can be attributed to Ullmann, whose tunes open and close the album, each offering a rugged lyrical quality. "The Shining Star" sets the stage with an air of fervent expressionism, as Ullmann and Stevens invoke the seminal collaborations of Archie Shepp and Dave Burrell. The closing "Desert... Bleue... East" was prominently featured on Ullmann's recent New Basement Research (Soul Note, 2007). An episodic deconstructed blues, the sublime polyphony of the aforementioned three-horn version is recast as a cinematic tone poem.

The title track and "Quirky Waltz" are Stevens' contributions — harmonically astute explorations bolstered by unorthodox structures and edgy lyricism — the latter being a showcase for his effervescent pianism. Culled from Schuller's recent Keith Jarrett tribute, Like Before, Somewhat After (Playscape, 2008), the drummer's sole offering is the sonorous "Back to School," a deceptively simple folk melody that blossoms into a plangent feature for Ullmann's expressive tenor.

Marking the tenth anniversary of this venerable ensemble, this session offers a marked departure from their usual live sets with brilliant studio sound that captures every nuance of their expansive abilities. A remarkably varied and rewarding listen, Poetry in Motion is one of Conference Call's finest offerings.

Reprinted with permission. Copyright © 2008 All About Jazz and Troy Collins.

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Stef Gijssels for his blog, published August 8, 2008

This is Conference Call's second studio release out of a total of five CDs, and it also celebrates the quartet's 10th anniversary, if you allow for the changes in drummers (from Matt Wilson over Han Bennink to George Schuller), and especially "Spirals : The Berlin Concert" is easy to recommend. The band consists of Gebhard Ullmann on reeds, Michael Jefry Stevens on piano, Joe Fonda on bass and George Schuller on drums, four musicians who've played in numerous bands and line-ups, and who clearly feel extremely comfortable together, both as performers and as composers. This CD has two compositions by each band member, except for one by Schuller, and still the music has an incredible unity in its variation. This is free jazz, for sure, but when I first listened to it, I was amazed by their daring mainstream influences (and yes, I find that's courageous at times, it requires openness of mind). "The Path" and "Back To School" for instance start off in a clear mainstream mood, melody and structure, but the musicians' sensitivities and breadth of scope are such that these are just the backbones for wonderful improvisations, which clearly go beyond the mainstream without losing the harmonic basis of the tune. Especially Schuller's "Back To School" brings some fantastic interplay and wonderful free soloing by Ullmann, for a melody which is extremely joyful in an overall sad environment, quite a compositional feat. It is followed by Jefry Stevens' dark and beautiful "Quirky Waltz", on which all four musicians push their instrumental skills to the limits : the bass clarinet is deep and low, alternated with light dancing, the piano haunting, the bass eery, and the percussion functional and sounding at times as glasses and bottles being collected in a bar. And you may expect anything from this band, on the last track "Desert ... Bleue ... East", a calm and free composition moves into the most energetic free environment and then back into bluesy piano notes with a flute sounding from a great distance in the background, and despite all the changes, it still is undoubtebly the same piece. It just illustrates that these four musicians know what music is about : powerful emotional expressiveness combined with musical inventiveness and group interplay. But the centerpiece of the album is Joe Fonda's "Next Step", which brings a repetitive hypnotic African rhythm for bass and drums, offering a great dialogue between piano and sax, that evolves quite brilliantly together with the rhythmic part, ending in an energetic bass solo. Highly recommended.

Copyright © 2008 Stef Gijssels.

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Bruce Lee Gallanter for Downtown Music Gallery

If the axis of this band — now commemorating its 10th year — is defined by two of its most complicit collaborators, pianist Michael Jefry Stevens and bassist Joe Fonda, co-founders of the Fonda/Stevens Group, then the involvement of woodwind player Gebhard Ullmann and drummer George Schuller reinforces the universal idea of group interdependence. However, there's still enough room for each to add their own unique concepts to an ever-evolving and most rewarding project. And what a project it is, in some ways tied to the late Sixties sound of the BYG free jazz records, while in other ways teetering on the edge of the vast unknown personified, for instance, by the recent developments of the Wayne Shorter Quartet. With original compositions offered by all four members and special attention paid to timbre and harmonic integration, there's a certain bold affirmation about the music in Poetry In Motion revealing a relaxed sense of purpose and musical fortitude. All four are active in both mainstream and avant-fields and all have notable CVs: Stevens's toe-dipping classical constructions, Fonda's open inventiveness (of course, stemming from his Anthony Braxton tutelage), Ullmann's extended reed skills and Schuller's knit-work craftsmanship - all combining to create music that swings outwardly, while at the same time, allows the listener to follow its inner abstractions. The liner notes of the CD speak of the joy, mystery and wonder felt by the performers during the recording sessions (their first studio recording in eight years), and we can surely recognize that essence. It's a measure of true artistic accomplishment when music so demanding can touch an emotional thread, proving that even a street full of concrete and glass can turn green and lush. Poetry in motion, indeed.

Copyright © 2008 Downtown Music Gallery and Bruce Lee Gallanter.

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Clifford Allen for Bagatellen, published September 7, 2008

Pianist-composer Michael Jefry Stevens and bassist-composer Joe Fonda have been working together for nearly two decades in various aggregations; two of the most regular have been the Fonda/Stevens Group and Conference Call. The latter ensemble, active for the past ten years, joins the pair with German reedman Gebhard Ullmann and drummer George Schuller (other occupants of that chair have included Gerry Hemingway, Han Bennink and Matt Wilson). It's an appropriate name for a group with two New Yorkers, another from Tennessee, and one from Berlin, though at this point they're hardly the only regularly active band with an interstate or intercontinental cast. Featuring seven titles, Poetry In Motion is their fifth release and first for Clean Feed.

Fonda's arco glisses pierce the martial pounding of Ullmann's "The Shining Star," Stevens' left hand weighted and right arcing outward as Schuller hangs in midair. Ullmann's an alternately throaty and disarmingly clean player, weaving with cloudy precision through his self-penned dusk and bounce. Even as he yelps and pesters with chewed phrases, there's quick and almost scholarly fluidity around fire-music tenor phrasing, culminating in a brief cornering with Fonda before the tune dissipates. The title piece, penned by Stevens, finds the composer and Ullmann's bass clarinet exploring filmic East-European corners and slinking their way around in woody darts, Fonda and Stevens subtly hacking at those very same curves. As the quartet opens up, Stevens' runs become fractured and pointillist, stop-start jabs beside a litany of post-Out To Lunch reed squawk. Schuller's "Back To School" recalls Burton Greene's recent re-explorations of Bartok (as well as some of Carla Bley's Liberation Music writing), and perhaps not coincidentally, Schuller has recorded with Greene for CIMP. The theme seems built for Ullmann, whose brightened edges match Stevens' poise, and it isn't until his solo spot two minutes in that dirt gets under the fingernails. It is here that the saxophonist seems the most unbridled, blowing without a hint of slickness. The rhythm section is extraordinarily lyrical, Stevens positively lush in his solo as he's fleshed out by bells and surly pluck. When four musician-composers with this level of technique and creativity get together, it's sure to bring quality playing, but the most interesting moments on Poetry In Motion occur when the quartet forgets what they know and just do.

Reprinted with permission. Copyright © 2008 Bagatellen and Clifford Allen.

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Budd Kopman for All About Jazz, published October 10, 2008

The creation of a work of art is an act of the mind that controls and shapes the medium's components in order to project the artist's sense of life and elicit a reaction from the consumer. In its highest forms, jazz might sound instinctive, but the reality is that years of practice have pushed the physical into the background and honed the mind to work exceedingly fast. A player entering "the zone" has not stopped thinking, but has dissolved the boundary between mind and body.

Poetry In Motion, by the collective group Conference Call, deserves to be considered as one of the year's best for the simple reason that its balance of thought and emotion, structure and freedom, clarity and abandon, is exquisitely and transparently laid out. Regardless of who composed any particular tune, providing a distinctive voice, the group acts as an organic unit, with the total sound becoming more than the sum of its parts.

In the notes, pianist Michael Jefry Stevens relates how he met reedman Gebhard Ullmann ten years earlier, with the two deciding to form a group. Stevens brought in his long-time musical partner, bassist Joe Fonda of the Fonda/Stevens Group. The drum chair has changed over the years, but seems to have settled down with George Schuller, who appeared on Spirals. The Berlin Concert (482 Music, 2004).

Stevens goes on to say how this studio recording bookends three live albums with the group's first album, and how being one of four strong — and very different — composes and players creates "an extremely and exciting musical experience both on the bandstand and in the studio."

Of the album's seven tracks, each member contributes two, except for one by Schuller. The overall mood is one of dark mystery and beauty mixed with a bit of danger (and humor) supported by a pent-up, controlled power which can explode at any time. While each of the tunes has a different kind of architecture, the structure surrounding the freedom, along with its development, is very audible.

The music is so strong from the first pedal point notes and bass squeals of Ullmann's "The Shining Star," that the stage is set for high drama, creating its own reality. The excitement reaches a fever pitch with the central, and longest track by Fonda, "Next Step," which begins with a driving rhythmic pattern on the drums that is picked up by Fonda. Ullmann enters on bass clarinet to play the eerie theme and the band is off. Toward the end, Fonda takes a vicious solo on which he can be heard grunting and vocalizing his lines — a truly inspiring track.

As he states in the notes, Stevens has every reason to be proud of Poetry In Motion. It is a triumph from any angle.

Reprinted with permission. Copyright © 2008 All About Jazz and Budd Kopman.

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Vincenzo Roggero for All About Jazz Italy, published November 17, 2008

Il tessuto connettivo che riveste Conference Call è di quelli forti ed elastici allo stesso tempo, grazie ad una fitta trama di relazioni che caratterizzano i percorsi dei quattro musicisti coinvolti. Il formidabile sassofonista e clarinettista tedesco Gebhard Ullmann vanta un sodalizio decennale con il pianista Michael Jefry Stevens, a sua volta co-leader con il bassista Joe Fonda di un ensemble stabile che da più di vent’anni esplora con successo i territori del freebop. Il batterista George Schuller è l’ultimo arrivato ma ha comunque alle spalle ben sette anni di sodalizio con questo quartetto.

Tutti questi numeri non potevano non riversarsi in Poetry in Motion, un CD pertanto fortemente coeso e compatto, senza sbavature, intenso, dagli incastri perfetti e dallo sviluppo armonioso. I quattro musicisti hanno attraversato a vario titolo le vicende della musica improvvisata negli ultimi vent’anni e in questo disco sembrano tirare le somme, impegnati in una sorta di pausa di riflessione sui suoi possibili sviluppi. Vi è una grande senso di calma e di tranquillità lungo le sette tracce del disco nonostante la musica sia spesso attraversata da fremiti violenti o da improvvise deflagrazioni.

Il clima complessivo della registrazione è quasi di stampo cameristico, nel senso di una precisione esecutiva e di una pulizia di suono non sempre facili da trovare in musicisti abituati a scorribande sonore tutt’altro che meditate. Ma pulsa forte il battito dell’improvvisazione, che sia quella di stampo dolphyano del clarone di Ullmann o quella dai forti accenti accademici del piano di Jefry Stevens il quartetto è in perenne movimento grazie anche alle invenzioni e alle sollecitazioni dei due ritmi.

Le composizioni sono tutte meritevoli di attenzione anche se non possiamo non segnalare "Back to School", dal tema ornettiano che esplode grazie al sax tenore di Ullmann , "Quirky Waltz" dall’incedere guardingo e misterioso e il conclusivo "Desert … Bleu … East", una ninna nanna che si trasforma progressivamente in visione allucinata prima di chiudersi come un blues notturno.

Un altro gran disco da casa Clean Feed.

Reprinted with permission. Copyright © 2008 All About Jazz Italia and Vincenzo Roggero.

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Yahvé M. de la Cavada for All About Jazz Italy, published November 17, 2008

Poetry In Motion podría ser el mejor disco del grupo Conference Call. O puede que no, pero la cuestión es que tras una primera escucha, esa es la sensación que queda.

Con la formación aparentemente estable desde hace unos años (George Schuller es el batería oficial, aunque le precedieron Matt Wilson y Han Bennink y Gerry Hemingway le ha sustituido en alguna ocasión), el grupo parece cómodo y relajado, comunicándose a un nivel espectacular. Esa parece la base de la banda y de la música que toca: la extraordinaria comunicación entre ellos. Todos los temas parecen tremendamente abstractos y sin embargo están muy definidos. Pero lo que es más importante, los músicos alcanzan ese estado de gracia en el que parece que todos tocan completamente a su aire y sin embargo, escarbando en los sonidos, uno puede percibir la sintonía que les hace imprescindibles a todos ellos.

Gebhard Ullmann, nombre básico del jazz y la vanguardia europea, posee un sonido pleno pero flexible al tenor y etéreo pero contundente al clarinete bajo. Así, consigue el difícil objetivo de sonar diferente según la pieza, no sonando a nadie en concreto. Michael Jefry Stevens tiene desde hace años un grupo con Joe Fonda, con lo que es natural que se entiendan a la perfección, y su estilo abierto y lírico es necesario para la música. Concentrándose en la parte media y aguda del teclado, recurre en ocasiones a armonías enriquecedoras y patrones percusivos que se repiten obsesivamente. Su papel es quizá el más impresionante puesto que, seguramente sin pretenderlo, desvía la atención del oyente hacia su piano en todo momento.

Pero Poetry In Motion es una obra coral, porque todos tocan en todo momento para todos y al final, es imposible disfrutar exclusivamente de lo que hace uno de ellos. Por ejemplo, George Schuller parece tener un papel secundario por lo aéreo y sofisticado de su toque, pero poco a poco se revela como una de las claves de la banda. Y no nos olvidemos de Fonda, con esas líneas poderosas e inspiradas que zigzaguean envolviendo a sus compañeros.

Además, las composiciones tienen la misma cualidad que los músicos: la de lograr una unidad ilusoria, teniendo en cuenta lo variado de la propuesta. Hay cientos de matices entre ellas y caracteres muy diversos pero, curiosamente, Poetry In Motion suena compacto, indeleble, capaz de soportar el juicio de los oídos más exigentes.

Quizá es por el resultado, orgánico y atemporal, o porque simplemente, lo firman cuatro nombres de un talento extraordinario. En definitiva, es una música inclasificable que navega entre la libertad más pura y el sentido más definitivo.

Poetry In Motion. Ahora que lo pienso, visto así, es mucho más que el nombre de un tema o el título del CD. Es toda una definición.

Reprinted with permission. Copyright © 2008 Tomajazz and Yahvé M. de la Cavada.

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Massimo Ricci for Touching Extremes

The specialist skills of the members of this quartet — together with a perceivable enthusiasm in the approach to the music — are relevant elements in this particularly elegant recording, which gathers musicians who — one way or another — have been working jointly for many years (especially pianist Michael Jefry Stevens and bassist Joe Fonda, whose artistic connection dates back to 1984). Saxophonist Gebhard Ullman performs on soprano and tenor, plus bass clarinet; both he and drummer/percussionist George Schuller are also frequent partners of Stevens. Each of the accomplices contributes with his own compositions, thus applying an iridescent lacquer to the record that is all the more conspicuous given the high standards of the instrumental level. The foursome are able to unchain themselves from straight behaviour when they wish to do so, pushing the boundaries of attitude well ahead of the canons of mainstream; it’s clearly observable, though, that their strongest asset is the ability of cuddling the listener across relatively placid seas, a rigorous pursuit of the graceful and the tasteful the fundamental objective through passages where delicacy and fervour find a point of compromise, leaving a door open to comprehensibility in the most elaborate fragments as well. The single voices shine throughout but, overall, this is a truly collective effort, the only actual deviations from the canon being a moaning-and-panting bass solo by Fonda where he seems to make love to the instrument ("Next Step") and Schuller’s suggestive hammer whistle call ending the disc in "Desert… Bleue… East". Fluently communicative and sophisticatedly instinctive, Stevens and Ullmann complete a superb combination, their coolness being the proof that jazz can still reach significant altitudes even when not furiously screaming and flaming from the nostrils.

Reprinted with permission. Copyright © Massimo Ricci.

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Michael G. Nastos for All Music Guide

Over a full decade, Conference Call has become one of the premier progressive and modern creative jazz outfits in the world, with only a few in their path. The diligent, clever techniques of pianist Michael Jefry Stevens and uniquely original saxophonist/clarinetist Gebhard Ullmann make a formidable tandem in terms of their shared ideas, similar vision, and ability to emote together or separately. Furthermore, they play in a manner where is it's not as noticeable as when people present entirely composed or improvised music. Bridging the gap between these two aesthetics, Stevens and Ullmann make incredible music by simply doing, and not thinking or pre-conceiving very much. Minor themes are expanded to the free based point of near infinity, always changing, evolving, and growing. Bassist Joe Fonda and drummer George Schuller have played with this ensemble for many years, and it shows in their keen sense of when to step forward, back, or provide innate support underneath. In fact, this is one of the more democratic of all jazz bands, they lean heavily on each other, or fire it up at will when they feel the need. The title cut, "Poetry in Motion," is perfectly named, as a resounding chorus of single, tiny, stairstep lines waft from Stevens and Ullmann's bass clarinet, ignited by the probing bass of Fonda, then pronounced as daring, dancing, or churning phrases, stopping, chopped up in free time with light squawks, then returning to small structures in a wonderfully developed and cleverly written piece. On a larger level, Fonda's insistent bass on top of Schuller's tom-tom drums leads into a distinctly Ornette Coleman-like motif during "Next Step," with Stevens breaking away and cutting loose. Schuller uses brushes, cymbals, and a thunder cone on "Quirky Waltz" while Stevens plays dark piano chords leading to a bass clarinet blues from Ullmann, then into deep tango as the band uses a 3/4-plus-two shifting meter. In the blue-grey spirit of Mal Waldron during "The Shining Star," Stevens somehow extracts this color palate in a stealth, foreboding, and skittering manner, with Fonda shading in black with his arco bass, and Ullmann's sighing tenor evoking huge shades of the purple night sky. There's a disconsolate, even angry end of summer theme to "Back to School," another go-round for Ullmann's frequently recorded "Desert...Bleue...East" in a patient, spiritual, worked-up, sped up, animated and calmed progression ended by Schuller's wooden hammer whistle, and a legit ballad "The Path," where Ullmann's soprano sax sings in varying dynamic ranges, but is not overpowering. Another triumphant recording for this extraordinary band of individualists, it should rate highly on critics' and listeners' favorites lists for 2008.

Copyright © All Music Guide and Michael G. Nastos.

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Multiple review by Karen Hogg for All About Jazz NY, published March 7, 2009

Pianist Michael Jefry Stevens has enjoyed a prolific musical journey but collaboration could be seen as the inspiration behind his music. Each project Stevens participates in offers a different framework to explore his compositional and improvisational ideas.

On the eponymous debut of the Eastern Boundary Quartet, the music literally crosses international boundaries as Stevens, along with bassist Joe Fonda, collaborates with Hungarian musicians Balazs Bagyi (drums) and Mihaly Borbel (sax). This live recording is a musical quilt combining the spirit of jazz with the distinctive nature of Hungarian music. The disc begins with "Song for My Mother," a Fonda composition, that starts off plaintively, building to an insistent crescendo and ending with masterful drum work. "The End Game," a Latin-flavored Stevens piece, features a melodic, virtuosic solo from Fonda and on "Tuzugras/Fire Jumping," the quartet exhibits an uncanny energy and drive. Rounding out the disc is an improvisational piece and Mongo Santamaria's "Afro Blue". With two American and two Hungarian musicians, the Eastern Boundary Quartet is a musical melting pot of the best kind.

For Andrew by Stevens' trio with bassist Peter Herbert and drummer Jeff "Siege" Siegel is a showcase for Stevens the composer. Though the Miles Davis/Bill Evans classic "Nardis" and the Moross-Latouch composition "Lazy Afternoon" are included, the majority of the compositions belong to Stevens. "Spirit Song" exemplifies Stevens' lyrical playing, "Waltz" is a propulsive piece that lets Siegel demonstrate his nuanced, expressive drumming and "The Lockout" is a playful, insistent tune with a march-like feel. "The River Po," the closing track, begins with Herbert bowing in the upper registers, creating a dark, moody tone. The compositions exhibit various influences from modern and free jazz, but each tune has Stevens' distinct stylistic stamp.

Conference Call, on the other hand, finds Stevens as part of a composing collective. All the members-Stevens, Fonda, reedman Gebhard Ullmann and drummer George Schuller-contribute compositions to Poetry in Motion. Stevens wrote the title track and the aptly named "Quirky Waltz". Another standout track is Fonda's "Next Step," a kinetic composition that highlights the rhythm section. Schuller's "Back To School" allows Ullmann to showcase his prodigious skills. The last tune, Ullmann's "Desert...Bleue...East," is a shape-shifting tour-de-force demonstrating the rhythmic interplay of the ensemble.

Stevens is also a part of the Southern Excursion Quartet, a collective of musicians living in the southeastern part of the United States (with saxist Don Aliquo, bassist Jonathan Wires and drummer Tom Giampietro.) True to its moniker, Trading Post has a distinctly southern feel. The Andrew Hill composition "Ashes" is languid, like a humid Tennessee summer afternoon. It builds in intensity, but never loses the relaxed feel. Giampietro's "A Long and Lonely Nights Work" sounds like it could be heard drifting out of a jazz club on Beale Street. Stevens, who moved to Memphis after years in the New York City area, contributed two pieces to this CD, "For Wheeler" (dedicated to trumpeter Kenny) and "Spiritual," the soulful closing track.

Reprinted with permission. Copyright © 2009 All About Jazz and Karen Hogg.

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