(Free Jazz) [CD] Decoy with Joe McPhee (John Edwards, Alexander Hawkins, Steve Noble, Joe McPhee) - Spontaneous Combustion (2CD) - 2013, FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Disc One performed live at Cafe OTO on 29 October 2011.
Disc Two performed live at Cafe OTO on 30 October 2011.

JOE MCPHEE
Since his emergence on the creative jazz and new music scene in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Joe McPhee has been a deeply emotional composer, improviser, and multi-instrumentalist, as well as a thoughtful conceptualist and theoretician. McPhee’s first recordings as leader appeared on the CjR label, founded in 1969 by painter Craig Johnson . These include Underground Railroad by the Joe McPhee Quartet in 1969, Nation Time by Joe McPhee in 1970, and Trinity by Joe McPhee, Harold E. Smith and Mike Kull in 1971. By 1974, Swiss entrepreneur Werner X. Uehlinger had become aware of McPhee’s recordings and unreleased tapes. Uehlinger was so impressed that he decided to form the Hat Hut label as a vehicle to release McPhee’s work. The label’s first LP was Black Magic Man, which had been recorded by McPhee in 1970. Black Magic Man was followed by The Willisau Concert and the landmark solo recording Tenor, released by Hat Hut in 1976. The earliest recordings by McPhee are often informed by the revolutionary movements of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s; for example, Nation Time is a tribute to poet Amiri Baraka and Joe McPhee & Survival Unit II at WBAI’s Free Music Store, 1971 (finally released as a Hat Art CD in 1996) is a sometimes anguished post-Coltrane cry for freedom. During the 1990’s, McPhee finally began to attract wider attention from the North American creative jazz community. He has since been performing and recording prodigiously as both leader and collaborator, appearing on such labels as CIMP, Okkadisk, Music & Arts, and Victo. In 1996, 20 years after Tenor, Hatology released As Serious As Your Life, another solo recording (this time featuring McPhee performing on various instruments). McPhee also began a fruitful relationship with Chicago reedman Ken Vandermark , engaging in a set of improvisational dialogues with Vandermark and bassist Kent Kessler on the 1998 Okkadisk CD A Meeting in Chicago. The Vandermark connection also led to McPhee’s appearance on the Peter BrotzmanChicagoOctet/Tentet three-CD box set released by Okkadisk that same year. As the 1990s drew to a close, McPhee discovered two like-minded improvisers in bassist Dominic Duval and drummer Jay Rosen- TRIO X.
"He is a stellar improviser, relishing his sound materials so caringly and for so long, the kind of player that invites you to really step outside of whatever mix you're and think and feel for a while." - Hank Shteamer, Dark Forces Swing Blind Punches
JOHN EDWARDS
John Edwards is a true virtuoso whose staggering range of techniques and boundless musical imagination have redefined the possibility of the double bass and dramatically expanded its role, whether playing solo or with others. Perpetually in demand, he has played with Evan Parker, Sunny Murray, Derek Bailey, Joe McPhee, Lol Coxhill, Peter Brötzmann, Mulatu Astatke and many others.
"I think John Edwards is absolutely remarkable: there’s never been anything like him before, anywhere in jazz." - Richard Williams, The Blue Moment
STEVE NOBLE
Steve Noble is London's leading drummer, a fearless and constantly inventive improviser whose super-precise, ultra-propulsive and hyper-detailed playing has galvanized encounters with Derek Bailey, Matthew Shipp, Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith, Stephen O'Malley, Joe McPhee, Alex Ward, Rhodri Davies and many, many more. In the early eighties, Noble played with the Nigerian master drummer Elkan Ogunde, Rip Rig and Panic, Brion Gysin and the Bow Gamelan Ensemble, before going on to work with the pianist Alex Maguire and with Derek Bailey (including Company Weeks 1987, 89 and 90). He was featured in the Bailey's excellent TV series on Improvisation for Channel 4 based on his book ‘Improvisation; its nature and practise’. He has toured and performed throughout Europe, Africa and America and currently leads the groups N.E.W (with John Edwards and Alex Ward) and DECOY (with John Edwards and Alexander Hawkins).
ALEXANDER HAWKINS
Alexander Hawkins is a pianist, organist, composer and bandleader who is ‘unlike anything else in modern creative music’ (Ni Kantu) and whose recent work has reached a ‘dazzling new apex’ (Downbeat). Self-taught, he works in a vast array of creative contexts. His own highly distinctive soundworld is forged through the search to reconcile both his love of free improvisation and profound fascination with composition and structure.

In spite of its relatively recent vintage, Oto (Bo' Weavil, 2010), the first encounter between Joe McPhee and British improvising trio Decoy, has quickly become one of the veteran multi-instrumentalist 's most popular recordings. By way of follow up Spontaneous Combustion first released as a LP, but now reissued as a double CD with added tracks, documents the second and third concerts by the band during a two night residency at Cafe Oto in October 2011. It's not too fanciful to call them a band. Even though Decoy has an independent existence, and has also combined with the likes of Sun Ra Arkestra reedman Marshall Allen, the empathy between the threesome and McPhee is nothing less than stunning. McPhee's vinegar and honey amalgam of post-Ayler fire and extemporized lyricism is already well-established. However Decoy as a unit has a lower profile. On bass it includes John Edwards, who furnishes ample confirmation of why he's in demand for almost every worthwhile session in London, while on drums is Steve Noble with who he forms a frequent pairing (both are part of Peter Brötzmann's English trio for example). But what sets Decoy apart is Alexander Hawkins' choice to utilize Hammond organ rather than his more familiar piano. He makes a virtue of the Hammond's lack of precision, working from a palette of broad brush smears, dynamic splatters and finely drawn whistles. McPhee allows the trio space to stretch out and they reciprocate by diligently seeking ways to set off his pocket trumpet and saxophone to best advantage. In spite of the generational differences all four are accomplished breakers of new ground. They partake of collective route finding of the highest order without the benefit of any compositional satnav. Three long form improvisations progress through well-judged transitions, evidence of intensive deep listening and laudable absence of ego. "Spontaneous Combustion 1" opens with McPhee's pocket trumpet squeals and stutters, over a pointillist backing which gradually coalesces behind heraldic fanfares. After many years performing in tandem Noble and Edwards prove virtually telepathic in their understanding, moving in and out of tempo at will. Once McPhee switches to alto saxophone, they slide into relaxed earthy ballad territory, which presages one of the first high points: a passage of intertwining alto and bowed bass in which they phrase as one. Another pinnacle comes as McPhee's blues drenched lines transmute into anguished vocal cries, somewhere in uncharted wilds between speech and music. Of the newly issued material (from the second night of the band's residency), "Set 1" proves more episodic, featuring a series of rapidly evolving vignettes, including some splendidly tangled drum and bass thickets. Noble matches Edwards' explosive energy with an almost bottomless repertoire of arresting tone colors from an array of untethered cymbals. He also enjoys a percussive interchange with Hawkins' Hammond, which firmly evokes the Sun Ra end of the organ spectrum. "Set 2" convinces as the most raw and unrestrained, starting at an immediate peak with McPhee's insistent alto and fiery accompaniment. After such crowd pleasing proceedings the final "Encore" almost seems counterintuitive as McPhee blows elegiac pocket trumpet over prickly but subdued support. It only goes to demonstrate the unpredictability and invention of this group and provides a powerful argument, were one needed, as to why the association should continue. ~ john sharpe, allaboutjazz.com

John Edwards - double bass
Alexander Hawkins - hammond B3 organ
Steve Noble - drums
Joe McPhee - pocket trumpet, alto sax