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Tales of Rohnlief

Tales of Rohnlief

a review by simon hopkins of
release format Tales of Rohnlief by Maneri, Phillips, Maneri (CD Album)

text

Thanks to the combined efforts of, primarily, his own son Mat, ECM Records and John Zorn's Avant, as well as a host of musicians that includes one-time associate Paul Bley, things have never looked quite so good for microtonal multi-reedsman Joe Maneri. And that's a good thing for the rest of us. Maneri nearly 'made it' in the early 60s when his marriage of bebop and microtonal techniques he'd picked up on, among other things, Jewish wedding gigs, came to the attention of music theoretician Gunther Schuller, who convinced Atlantic to make an album with Maneri. Said album, however, went unreleased until Avant picked up on it over three decades later (which was highly appropriate; the album, Paniots Nine, prefigured much of Zorn recent Masada-based jazz and chamber work). By then, Mat had been (re-)introducing his father - lost in academia for most of the ensuing time - to the world at large. Mat himself has learned his father's lessons well; taking Maneri Snr's ideas about microtonal improvising and applying them to the electric violin, he's now gaining a rep as one of contemporary jazz's most interesting new voices.

So, back in June 1998, Mat brought together his father and double bassist Barre Phillips (whose work he'd only just come across, but whose restless sense of invention he recognised immediately) with himself and ECM house producer Steve Lake, for a week of recording in the Swiss town of Winterthur. As is evident from the consequent album release, the trio found each other inspiring company. Joe contributes alto and tenor sax as well as clarinet, piano and occasional singing; Mat plays electric 6-string and baritone violins; Phillips, rising to the occasion, dusted off his 5-string bass for the first time in many a year. It would be disingenuous to suggest that this music would be anything other than odd for the newcomer; the constant microtonal nature of the work can be very unsettling indeed. And yet there's a warmth, a humanity, a sense of balladry at this music's heart, as though an ethnomusicolgist from our distant future has sent back to us his mistaken recreation of ancient European folk music. Posted by simon hopkins at 00:00, 28 Apr 2000