Art Ensemble of Chicago - In Concert (DVD, 11/1/81)
This early 80s period may have been no man’s land for most jazz artists that hadn’t turned to fusion, but it may have been one of AEC’s prime periods and this shortish hour long DVD is a rather perfect introduction to the band, what they do and how they do it. Clearly very percussion oriented around this time (if not always, reall), with a couple of the members switching to drums in certain parts, it still seems that this is mostly Bowie and Jarman’s gig, with both of them taking long and inspired solos. This is definitely a band that listens to each other, every note from every instrument a potential to drive the ensemble in a new direction. Maybe the only issue is it seems a bit too short, with an album like Urban Bushman, at least I felt like they were really sinking their teeth in. Of course I’ll take the hour over nothing. Forget jazz, this is really one of music’s most creative and inspired units.
Uzva - Progday XII, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, NC 8/2/06 (DVD)
Uzva - Uoma
Took me forever to get Uoma, I missed the first batch at Wayside and waited months for more to come in, in fact it was watching the Progday DVD that reminded me I needed to get it. Both of these two items really evince a different band in many ways, just by nature of the first two albums and their presentation I was thinking something more like Pohjola or Piirpauke in style, music a bit more formal, but when the band starts playing on this rather beautifully recorded audience sourced DVD, I was thinking Zappa all the way -the large band that seems conducted by the lead guitarist, especially in how the composed moments give way to improvisations, the vibes player (not marimba but close), the tentative agreement between jazz and rock, etc. While Uzva play music not quite as complex or involved as the mid 70s Zappa they remind me of nor is there a sense of humor as prominent (it’s there in the band’s playfulness if not overt), there’s an ease and sense of space in their live show that I don’t recognize on Uoma, even if a great chunk of that album is played here. I don’t want to give the impression I prefer the live Uzva over the studio, in fact the studio treatment tends to reign in the band’s few excesses (a measure or two shorter for instance), but experiencing both does make me tend to appreciate the whole unit more. As for Uoma, being quite a bit longer than their last album probably didn’t help a great deal in terms of comparisons, but I think I’d need a few more listens to commit to that opinion as there’s a lot to like here.