Audiographic Records presents the first album by Ken Vandermark’s newest ensemble, Edition Redux, which adds to the MacArthur Prize winner's internationally and critically acclaimed series of bands he has composed for: The Vandermark 5, FME, The Territory Band, The Resonance Ensemble, Entr'acte, Made To Break, and Marker. In addition to Vandermark, who plays saxophones and clarinet with the group, this quartet is composed of Erez Dessel (keyboards), Lily Finnegan (drums), and Beth McDonald (tuba/electronics), who represent the next wave of Chicago’s creative music scene.
Called Better A Rook Than A Pawn, the recording includes the wide range of Vandermark's interests and influences: incorporating the experimental jazz of the AACM; the different schools of improvised music developed in England, Netherlands, and Germany; post-punk, Tropicalia, dub, and funk. Edition Redux presented its music for the first time during a U.S. tour in April of 2023, then recorded this material at Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago immediately following that series of concerts. After a highly successful tour in Europe during October of the same year, the group will be back on the road in the States during February of 2024 and in Europe in November.
This music utilizes a "cinematic" approach to organizing the pieces, a system which allows me to reconfigure the material for every performance, leading to new paths for the music during the compositions and in open sections as well as self-determined free improvisation between them. This methodology can be challenging to work with because each player needs to keep in mind where they've been, where they are, and where they're going regarding the compositional sequences, as well as what needs to take place during each piece.
Edition Redux had its first rehearsal on March 29th, 2023. During a seven-date April tour in the States following those initial meetings, the group became a creative machine, each concert leading to new acuity regarding the music and how it can be performed. The quartet transformed from a new project to a full-fledged band during that process, enabling the group to record all 17 pieces from the book in first takes at Experimental Sound Studio on April 25th. That creative arc is more than extraordinary and was made possible because of the ongoing innovation and insight that Erez Dessel, Lily Finnegan, and Beth McDonald put into the music.
I’d like to thank Katinka Kleijn and Nick Macri for the work they contributed during more than half a year of rehearsals and performances in Chicago to developing the material heard on this album, and I look forward to collaborating with them on an expanded version of Edition Redux in the future.
-Ken Vandermark, Chicago, September 25, 2023
“One and one is two- that’s business. One and one is four- that’s art- or if you like it better- is life. I think that makes clear: the many-fold seeing, the many-fold reading of the world makes us broader, wider, richer. In education, a single standpoint cannot give a solid firm stand. Thus, let us have different viewpoints, different standpoints. Let us observe in different directions and from different angles…”
-Josef Albers (speech delivered at the Black Mountain College Luncheon, Cosmopolitan Club, New York, December 9, 1938; back cover from from One and One Is Four: The Bauhaus Photocollages of Josef Albers (Museum of Modern Art: 2016), contributors: Sarah Hermanson Meister, Elizabeth Otto, Lee Ann Daffner)
credits
released December 22, 2023
1. Time Is the Tune (for Lisette Model)/Wols (for Wolfgang Schulze) /Uncommon Object (for Walter Hopps) [9:40]
2. Summer Sweater (for Betty LaVette)/Matching Shocks (for Anka Ptaszkowska & Henryk Stażewski)/Coherence (for Fred Sandback)/Swan Zig (for Ab Baars) [13:08]
3. Double Negative (for Michael Heizer)/Still Bresson (for Robert Bresson)/Aperto (for Julius Hemphill) [13:49]
4. Yau (for John Yau)/Mechanique (for Conlon Nancarrow)/Circuit (Roscoe Mitchell)/Collapsible Shoulder (for Susan Sontag) [14:40]
5. No Back to Your Jacket (for King Tubby)/Reel to Reel (for John Carter)/Flatlands (for Philip Guston) [16:45]
Music composed by Ken Vandermark (Twenty First Mobile Music Publishing/ASCAP, AUME/Published by Cien Fuegos)
Music performed and improvised by-
Erez Dessel: piano and Nord synthesizer
Lily Finnegan: drums
Beth McDonald: tuba and electronics
Ken Vandermark: reeds
Recorded by Alex Inglizian at Kate In at Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago on April 24, 2023. Mixed and mastered by Alex Inglizian at ESS. Produced by Ken Vandermark for Audiographic Records.
Cover art, idea 1, by Michael Finnegan
Album design by Fede Peñalva
Thanks to the musicians; to Alex Inglizian, Kate In, and the staff at Experimental Sound Studio; to all the audiences and organizers on the April 2023 U.S. tour; to Fede Peñalva; and to the listeners.
supported by 60 fans who also own “Better A Rook Than A Pawn”
After a precision liftoff in Tabasco and setting a course to travel the space ways from planet to planet, the album peels away through a wormhole just past Saturn in the eponymous track Mayan Space Station to journey through time and space in Canyons of Light. eric F
supported by 54 fans who also own “Better A Rook Than A Pawn”
Simply amazing to hear a new album with Wadada and Ewart!! ...And Reed rounds out this trio beautifully.
Just gave it my first spin. Absolutely magical. jeffrey maurer
