Eastern European folk music meets Sun Ra. Simple quirky melodies with adventerous harmonies over heavy odd meter grooves, with the unusual instrumentation of bass clarinet, trumpet, accordion, guitar, bass, drums and tabla.

11 MP3 Songs
JAZZ: World Fusion, JAZZ: Weird Jazz



Details:
Gubbish existed for about 5 years with an ever revolving cast of players. The concept was keep the song structure of simple jazz "head-solo-head" forms, yet create a different sound using unusual harmonies, odd meters and unexpected chord changes.
There are obvious heavy nods to John Zorn, Sun Ra and Miles Davis, yet I think an originality of composition squeezes through with a stylistic consisency throughout the record.
Other things to note are the unusual instruments that create a group "sound" to the record. Of special interest to me is the blend of tabla and accordion. These two (Sameer Gupta and Dan Cantrell) spent almost all non musical downtime (either at gigs or in the studio) geeking out on different Indian and Balkan rhythms.
Drummer Ches Smith always sounds amazing, and I was lucky enough to be able to play so much music with him. Darren Johnston plays some beautiful solos on this record, most notably on "Mold of Yancy" where he utilizes the melody throughout his solo to dramatic effect.
John Finkbeiner is my Ab Baars of the band. He decidedly does not insert a jazz noise here, which is a welcome relief from a guitarist. Bass player, David Arend sounds suprisingly solid considering this was the first time playing alot of this music, and yours truly rounds it out on bass clarinet.
When I wrote "Vulgarian Folk Melody" I felt I had stumbled upon something worth exploring further. This album is the beginnings of that exploration, one that is far from over. In any case, this album will always stand as The Document of my early work, a style that is already evolving rapidly. Stay tuned.

Aaron Novik