Various Artists
The New Universe Music Festival 2010
Abstract Logix
Last November, in
a theater in North
Carolina, some of
the greatest jazz/rock
musicians alive came
together for the inaugural
New Universe
Music Festival. These players all happen to be
signed to the Abstract Logix label, but this festival
wasn’t merely a showcase for their sponsor—
it’s more like a look at the history of this
genre and where it’s headed. The album opens
up with one of the young lions on the bill,
Alex Machacek— whose trio includes Neal
Fountain on bass and Jeff “Apt. Q258” Sipe
on drums—combining his angular, jarring
melodies with dissonant chords on “Strafe.”
Closing out the first disc is Widespread
Panic’s lead axe-slinger Jimmy Herring.
“Rainbow” kicks off Herring’s set with
keyboardist Matt Slocum playing a pensive
piano intro before jumping into an odd-time
riff that sets up Herring’s absolutely
burning solo. Here, Herring mixes the
whammy-bar tricks of Jeff Beck with the
harmonic vocabulary of Coltrane. On the
second disc, Wayne Krantz appears with his
trio—bassist Anthony Jackson and drummer
Cliff Almond—and blurs the line
between composition and improvisation
with “Why,” a frenetic tune that combines
chord stabs with Krantz’s signature intervallic
soloing. Herring later returns as part
of Lenny White’s group to tear through
the odd-time madness of Joe Henderson’s
“Gazelle” with guitarist Tom Guarna, and
the two guitarists come off like a futuristic-sounding
Allman Brothers.
The final guitarist on the album is the
Mahavishnu himself, John McLaughlin. His
band, the Fourth Dimension, is a tight and
nimble unit that can change directions at
will as if all the members are a single organism.
McLaughlin’s amp-less tone sings its
way through the opener, “Recovery,” and
bassist Etienne Mbappé shows no shortage
of chops on his turn in the spotlight.
Joining the group for some extra rhythmic
propulsion is tabla master Zakir Hussain.
On the album closer, “Mother Tongues,”
Hussain and McLaughlin bring back some
of that Shakti mojo with a 21-minute firestorm
that lets everyone in the band stretch
out. It will take most listeners some time
to work through both discs, but the chance
to hear the evolution of jazz/rock guitar in
a live setting is well worth the investment.