Faquini made a vivid first impres-
sion with his 2016 debut Metal na
Madeira featuring Rio-based vocalist
Paula Santoro; that album featured his
originals set to an array of Northeast-
ern rhythms. The expert songcraft
on display throughout Setting Rays is
more than impressive, but what stands
out most is the way that trombone,
guitar, and two voices conjure a fully
realized realm. ANDREW GILBERT
PAUL BLEY/
GARY PEACOCK/
PAUL MOTIAN
When Will the Blues
Leave
ECM
An album’s credits can speak volumes,
not just about who plays on a record but
how the weight of creation is divided
across artists. On When Will the Blues
Leave, captured at a 1999 live concert
at the Aula Magna di Trevano in Swit-
zerland, the equal billing of Paul Bley,
Gary Peacock and Paul Motian fore-
casts the equal contributions that each
musician plays in shaping the group’s
sonic geometry. From the moment
Motian’s sticks slink across the kit like
a tango dancer at the outset of Bley’s
“Mazatlan,” spurring his bandmates
into dervish-like activity, the dynamics
are set for the trio’s mutating music.
That music can feel organic and
pulsating, constantly evolving like
primordial matter, but also rigid and
strongly defined like a hypercube or
M.C. Escher lithograph. The group
achieves the heights of this state on
“Moor,” a Peacock original that sees the
three each attempt to stretch the melody
and cadence into differing, parallel ab-
stractions. On the title track (an Ornette
Coleman composition), Bley’s piano
work eventually takes on a spiraling,
almost illusory quality as his hands
scramble up and down the keyboard.
When Will the Blues Leave is intense
in both sound and performance, as
Bley, Peacock, and Motian collectively
improvise dizzying forms, textures,
and melodic ideas in each of the eight
tracks. However, such displays don’t
always have to rely on aerobics. The
is all dub fracture and crippled fairy-
tale sounds; the funk drum beat of
“Bullet” sideswipes circular synths and
spoken-word demands; “Home” spins
Vangelis-worthy melodies over a 4/4
house beat; “Roast” is as catchy as Lipps
Inc.’s “Funkytown.”
Guiliana uses L.A. and NYC’s finest
jazz cats to spin his electronic web, but
are they necessary? He clearly has the
vision thing down, from yellow sweat-
suits to grooving robotic beats. “Beat
Music! Solo” beckons.
KEN MICALLEFALLEN LOWE
Jews & Roots
(An Avant Garde
of Our Own — Discon-
nected Works: 1980-2018)
ESP-Disk’Of all the people who’ve ever made
jazz, Allen Lowe may be the hard-
est to figure out. He’s a frustratingthree engage in some of Bley’s im-
pressionistic balladry on tracks like
“Longer” and “Dialogue Amour.” Then
on numbers like “Told You So” and “I
Loves You, Porgy,” the rhythm section
falls away almost fully, allowing the
pianist to wander across the ivories at
his own pace, musing on moods and
timbres as long as he wants. In these
moments, Peacock and Motian show
how restraint, even more than technical
ability, can strengthen a collective mu-
sical vision. JACKSON SINNENBERGMARK GUILIANA
Beat Music! Beat Music!
Beat Music!
MotémaOf all the musicians who performed
on David Bowie’s Blackstar, drum-
mer/composer Mark Guiliana seems
to have been the most affected by its
insularity; his own subsequent music
has split into two separate personali-
ties. Guiliana made electronic music
as early as 2012’s Beat Music and 2014’s
The Los Angeles Improvisations, but
post-Blackstar—as his latest, triple-ti-
tled release confirms—the divide be-
tween that and his more freely acoustic
music couldn’t be greater.
Mark Guiliana Jazz Quartet’s
Jersey arrived in 2017, as pure as a
hard-swinging night at the Village
Vanguard, where the quartet held
court this past spring. By contrast,
Beat Music! ... sounds like one mad
professor with Ableton Live software
as his slave. Entirely through-com-
posed with nary an improvised solo,
Guiliana’s playful electronica vibrates
and buzzes, boings! and sizzles like
Kraftwerk matched up with Luke
Vibert, Giorgio Moroder, and Tom
To m C l u b.
Implemented by Guiliana, bassists
Chris Morrissey and Tim Lefebvre, and
keyboardists Jason Lindner, Jeff Babko,
and BIGYUKI, among others, Beat
Music! ... is consistently surprising. Its
restraint is its charm. Opener “Girl”
bruises with a slo-mo synth bass line
doubled on acoustic drums, which gets
overtaken just a few bars in by charged,
sparkling, and ominous synths. “Bud”