“Living Portrait of Scott Fields” by Andre Ferrella recording dénouement
About me! recording reviews Scharfefelder © Bitter Love Songs © Beckett © We Were The Phliks © Song Songs Song © christangelfox © 15=15 Plunderplunderphonics © From the Diary of Dog Drexel © 96 Gestures © this that © Mamet © Dénouement © Hornets Collage © Five Frozen Eggs © 48 Motives © Sonotropism © Disaster at Sea © Fugu © Running with Scissors © Chronotomy © Heliopolis © Maze meet the critics interviews Harvey Pekar, material for Jazziz feature © Ludwig van Trikt, for Cadence magazine
About me. Me me me me!
Born in Chicago but based since 1976 in Madison, Wisconsin, Fields is presently nurturing his own creative renaissance, following a prolonged absence from the arena. He is a musician of considerable conceptual sophistication. He is also judicious in his choice of collaborators, inviting along musicians who will galvanize any concept into active life. — Julian Cowley, The Wire
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Guitarist/composer Scott Fields is a genuine musical adventurer, as likely to explore complex systems of motivic structure as free improvisation. The question that follows, though, is “When?” For Fields is the kind of player whose simultaneous sureness and abstraction can easily blur the lines of method. — Stuart Broomer, Signal to Noise
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Few guitarists have taken up the challenge of free improvisation, at least relative to saxophonists or drummers. And because there have been correspondingly few masters in the field, emerging artists tend to veer toward one of only two canonical styles: the jagged, brittle abstraction of Derek Bailey or the equally fervid (but relatively linear) postromantic lyricism of Joe Morris. But Scott Fields has managed to find a different path, and a rewarding one at that. He borrows evenhandedly from both Bailey and Morris, but offers fewer notes and less volume than either, opening up a fair amount of space and giving his music a particularly midwestern contour—prairie landscapes instead of canyons. The guitarist also offers an answer to the essential question of jazz since the 90s: how to balance composition and improvisation. Unlike a typical head-then-solos jazz tune, his music doesn’t counterpose these two forces; instead it often seems to employ both simultaneously, weaving together theme and variation so seamlessly you can’t always tell the difference. — Neil Tesser, Chicago Reader
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In general, Fields’ music is unique but surprisingly accessible, often featuring long-lined solos. Fields improvises very well, sometimes displaying classical and flamenco influences. — Harvey Pekar, Jazziz
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There’s a definitely classical feel to his sound, but it’s tempered with a prickly improvisational edge. Fields is equally talented at composing, crafting long skeins of dense melodic interplay through which solo passages emanate with ease. — Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader
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Fields’ guitar playing covers a broad stylistic palette. Some of his compositions and improvisations are unusually spacious, allowing time for each note to resonate and breathe; some of the compositions explode into jagged sonic shards that shower the listener, not allowing time to fully comprehend or absorb the sonic onslaught. Fields’ phrasing is more suggestive of the piano work of Cecil Taylor than it is of the work of any mainstream jazz guitarist. At times, Fields takes broad swipes at his guitar, creating dense clusters of sound splintering out of the dark sonic nest. His dynamics are broad and carefully controlled. There are also clear strains of rock-based sensibilities that creep into some of the improvisations. Fields has a highly developed approach to composition that blurs the distinction between composition and improvisation in much the same way as Myra Melford did during her performance at Duke University last week. In all cases, the forms of the compositions are integrally linked to the form of the improvisations and the interplay between the players. The basic pattern is for the selections to begin with a simple melody and evolve into improvisations of intense interplay and ferocious energy. Yet, even in its most seemingly uninhibited moments, the trio retained a high level of discipline and coherence.— Stan Dick, Spectator Magazine
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Unless an unpredictable upheaval happens (for example in terms of guitarists, it is necessary to be able to remember our “conversations” about James Emery, Masujaa, Spencer Barefield, Joe Morris, Bruce Eisenbeil…), Scott Fields is destined for a dazzling future where he lives, on the borders of the lands of jazz—or its installation. There (in Madison, Wisconsin), on the 13th, 14th and 17th of October, 1996, he brought together two ensembles that he knows better than anyone else. With the first, Fields played a perpetual game, his instrument clearly linking with either the piano or with the bass, depending on whether he wished to give to the variation a slippery character or an impenetrable one. There is also in his phrasing a mastery of a gliding flight which ignores caution or vertigo, as well as an emphasis on tiny boisterous contractions, six cords without fragments, but in balance across which Marilyn Crispell continues to exert the power of slackening, especially during the dispersion of Anthony Braxton’s quartet. In addition, Fields draws out his guitar and broadens it, giving the impression of tranquilly sinking himself into the eye of the cyclone; the body worn-out from the storm prevails over outer dangers and themes. — Alexandre Pierrepont, Improjazz
Scharfefelder
Gleich zwei neue CDs des seit fünf Jahren in Köln lebenden Chicagoer Gitarristen Scott Fields erscheinen dieser Tage auf dem interessanten Lissabonner Improviser-Label Clean Feed. Fields kennt man von seinen Arbeiten mit Joseph Jarman, Hamid Drake, Mat Maneri, Marilyn Crispell, Michael Formanek, oder Jeff Parker, alle veröffentlicht auf Kleinstlabels wie Black Saint, Delmark, und Music and Arts. Scharfefelder — sorry, diesen Titel, zusammengesetzt aus den übersetzten Nachnamen der zwei Gitarristen Sharp und Fields, finde ich nicht so richtig lustig. Doch vielleicht ist diese strikte Eins-zu-eins-Übersetzung ja auch absolut ernst gemeint, denn musikalisch geht es in dieser «neuen Kammermusik» meist kratzbürstig zu. Da wird lustvoll so einiges zitiert, erinnert (in den packendsten Momenten) an Larry Coryell’s Spiel bei «Spaces», kurze Akkorde lassen auch an mittelalterliche Lautenmusik denken. Ausgiebige leidenschaftliche Improvisationsgefechte ausschließlich auf akustischen Gitarren, wilde Ausgelassenheit, zarte Sinnlichkeit, abrupte Brüche — wahrscheinlich ist das alles provokativ gemeint, soll den Hörer herausfordern. Aber ob sich, außer auf Improvisation versessene Gitarristen und Hardcorefans der beiden Saitenderwische, noch jemand für deren introvertierten Streifzug durch die Scharfefelder interessiert? Nach fast siebzig Minuten gebe ich mich geschlagen — ganz ehrlich, mir ist dieses orgiastische «Geschrammel» zu anstrengend. (Translated by the site’s webmaster, email him with complaints.) Two new CDs from Chicago guitarist Scott Fields, who for the last five years has lived in Cologne, appear on the Lisbon label Clean Feed, which specializes in interesting improvisers. Fields is known from his work with Joseph Jarman, Hamid Drake, Mat Maneri, Marilyn Crispell, Michael Formanek, and Jeff Parker, all published on such small labels as Black Saint, Delmark, and Music and Arts. Sorry, I do not find the title Scharfefelder, the German translation of the surnames Sharp and Fields, the two guitarists, really funny. But perhaps this strict one-to-one translation is also absolutely serious, because this “new chamber music” is mostly provocative. There are many enjoyable sections that recall (in the most absorbing moments) Larry Coryell’s playing on “Spaces” and sudden chords that bring to mind medieval lute music. Extensive passionate improvisation exchanges, played exclusively on acoustic guitar, wild exuberance, delicate sensuality, abrupt breaks — probably this is meant to be provocative and is intended to challenge the listener. But, except for improvisation-obsessed guitarists and hardcore fans of the two whirling-dervish string-players, would someone find the introverted journey through Scharfefelder interesting? After nearly seventy minutes of this orgy of “crazy strumming” I began to feel the effort. — 4 stars (out of 5) Olaf Maikopf, Jazzthetik (Continues with review of Bitter Love Songs.)
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De to gitaristene Elliott Sharp og Scott Fields har også satt preg på amerikansk musikk de siste 30 årene, både som komponister og utøvere. På Scharfefelder møtes de til naken, akustisk dyst og duett, i grenselandet komponert/improvisert. Musikken er intim, men også stålstrengskarp og eksplosiv. Stilkomponenter fra frijazz, blues og minimalisme tilkjennegir seg i de forskjellige uttrykkene som presenteres. Scharfefelder byr på fortettet nerve og reflektert spill. — 5 stars (out of 5) Arild R. Andersen, Oslopuls
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Elliott Sharp in allen Gassen: hin und wieder lässt sich der Gitarrist auf Zwiegespräche mit Kollegen ein Scharfefelder zieht sich mit einem Dutzend Stücke in die Länge. Das ausufernde Techtelmechtel aus wilder Ausgelassenheit, zarter Sinnlichkeit und abrupten Brüchen ermŸdet auf die Dauer und ist wohl nur für Gitarren-Freaks geeignet. Scharfefelder bezeichnen kein musikalisches Neuland und sind insgesamt akustischer Kunst verpflichtet. Sie sind die direkte Übersetzung der beiden Protagonisten Namen Sharp und Fields. Der 1959 geborene Chicagoer Gitarrist Scott Fields mit Wohnsitz Köln hat mit vielen innovativen Vertretern des aktuellen Jazz gearbeitet. (Translated by the site’s webmaster, email him with complaints.) Elliott Sharp walks many roads. Now and then the guitarist collaborates with colleagues. Scharfefelder is long, with a dozen pieces. The recordingÕs rampant flirtations with wild exuberance, delicate sensuality, and abrupt breaks, which tire the listener in the long run, is probably only for guitar freaks. Scharfefelder breaks no musical new ground and is a display of the art of the acoustic. The title is direct translation of the two protagonists names, Sharp and Fields. The Chicago-born (1959) guitarist Scott Fields lives in Cologne and has worked with many innovative representatives of contemporary Jazz. — Reiner Kobe, Jazz Podium
Bitter Love Songs
Mordant wit and caustic self-deprecation have always been reliable elements in Scott Fields’ creative expression. From the pithy brickbats of semi-fictional critic Hugh Jarrid to the admirable, if puzzling, practice of publishing pans right alongside praises on his website, the guitarist has never shied away presenting the whole package of his persona, prickly pear portions and all. Even by Fields’ archly candid standards this new Clean Feed outing stands out. His liners read as a suite-like screed, pillorying a succession of unnamed assailants to his temper and patience. He saves the strongest recriminations for last, directing black roses and dead rat vitriol at those who have wronged him in love. Track titles wryly embellish on the conceit, my personal favorite being “Your parents must be ecstatic now.” Despite the dour and potentially distracting emotional context, the set stays sharply on point throughout, though it’s hard to tell exactly how much of the acrimony is genuine and how much is amplified for show. The music curiously recalls the early Nineties work of Joe Morris in its preference for pared down frills-free interplay. Jagged single note runs race regularly atop undulating bass and drums rhythms. Think Flip and Spike, and more specifically “Itan” and “Mombaccus,” and your close to the aural mark. Fields’ tone is often a bit rounder and cleaner than JoMo’s and that may be a function of the recording, but there’s a comparable frequency of densely knotted note clusters, spit out at staccato intervals. Bassist Sebastian Gramss and drummer João Lobo traffic in comparable agitation and irascibility, shading in the cracks around Fields’ chattery plectrum pings while still keeping the pieces intentionally off-kilter. It’s a dynamic intended to ape the disquieting feeling just prior to when one’s heart goes under the knife of betrayal and scorn. The pieces follow similar schemas until “I was good enough for you until your friends butted in” when the seething clouds break a bit into more spacious variation of melancholy. This is easily Fields most jazz-oriented album in many moons and a welcome fang-fringed spin on familiar forms. — Derek Taylor, Bagatellen
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The Freetet is ostensibly Cologne-based guitarist Scott Fields’ “traditional blowing vehicle,” and Bitter Love Songs is his first in the guitar-bass-drums format since Mamet (Delmark, 2001), with bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Michael Zerang. On Bitter Love Songs, he’s joined by German bassist Sebastian Gramss and Portuguese drummer João Lobo. What makes this date a semi-departure for Fields is that, in the last six years, most of his work has been for chamber ensembles with unique instrumentation; improvised but with challenging notation. These include Beckett (Clean Feed, 2006) and We Were the Phliks (Rogue Art, 2007). “Yea Sure, We Can Still Be Friends, Whatever” opens Bitter Love Songs, an evermore scumbled improvisation on a simple-but-effective bluesy theme, from fleet mid-range choruses to muted smears interspersed with referential flecks. Gramss and Lobo make a solid post-bop pair, yet seamlessly enter into frantic collective interplay as Fields’ runs become blurred. More pointillist is “Go Ahead, Take the Furniture, At Least You Helped Pick It Out,” occupying similar structural territory to Fields’ more delicate chamber pieces, while still sallying forth with a pliant groove. What might separate this group from “traditional” theme-solos-theme orientation is that, for the most part, the leader is the only soloist (Gramss is spotlighted on “I Was Good Enough for You…”). Nevertheless, the Freetet’s approach is certainly unified—as Fields’ playing becomes more fragmentary and texturally diverse, Gramss and Lobo up the ante. Indeed, the bassist is frequently the first to follow Fields in speedy plucked lines, as mutual shading soon approaches a locking of horns. “My Love is Love, Your Love is Hate” (winner of the shortest-title contest on this disc) finds the writing becoming progressively more seasick in a hellishly knotty melodic/rhythmic collision, Lobo’s suspended time gradually filling in momentum alongside the strings’ ornate picking, digs and scrapes. Sub-tonal jabs behind the bridge approach British guitarist Ray Russell’s territory, before the trio brings the tune into a muddy thrum. One must be prepared for relentlessness with this disc—even the brief calm of a dusky Grant Green-ish melody on “Your Parents Must Be Just Ecstatic Now” is quickly overtaken by a storm of fuzz and piercing shards. When Fields and guitarist Jeff Parker convened a double-trio for Denouement (Geode, 1997, reissued on Clean Feed), the level of interplay from the “paired Freetets” astounded this writer. On Bitter Love Songs, multiplying the equation is unnecessary, as there’s so much music available here. — Clifford Allen, All About Jazz
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With his guitar trio, the Scott Fields Freetet, the guitarist wants to get even for all the problems caused to him by people he trusted and especially the one he loved. The titles of the tracks leave nothing to the imagination : “Yeah, Sure, We Can Still Be Friends, Whatever,” “Go Ahead, Take The Furniture, At Least You Helped Pick It Out,” “My Love Is Love, Your Love Is Hate,” etc, etc. And with that knowledge in mind, you would expect some raw, frustrated, angry or even violent music, or at best some sad blues-drenched wailing. What you get is nothing of the sort, though. You get abstract and free music, nervous and agitated, often sounding like Joe Morris, all in the mid-tempo range, with the exception of the fifth track, “I Was Good Enough For You Until Your Friends Butted In’” which is a little slower and closer to a blues in form and feeling. Sebastian Gramss on bass and João Lobo on drums play well and supportive, because Fields is not always easy to follow. Despite many good ideas, the emotional disconnect between theme and form is too big a gap to bridge for me. This soft-toned, gentle, open yet nervous music is the opposite of the destructive anger you would expect. Fields would have done better by presenting is music “as is,” leaving more to the listener’s imagination, rather than pointing the direction with words. Now, it’s just a nice album which will certainly be of interest to modern guitar-players. 3 stars — Stefan Gijssels, Free Jazz Blogspot
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The depths to which Scott Fields will sink are seemingly infinite. On his newest debacle, Bitter Love Songs, on the Spanish label Clean Feed Records, he hires a surrogate to perform in his place. Although Fields is listed as the album’s composer and guitarist, clearly he has hired a far-superior plectrum pounder to play his parts. This reviewer’s best guess? Joe Morris. Having suffered through countless (and beatless) Fields solos I know well his plinky-plunky “Ah so, mister, you have ticky for washy, no ticky no washy” acoustic guitar “stylings” and his many mangled missteps on the electrified alternative; the licks on this disc just taste different. Although I deplore his dishonesty, failing to even assign his sub a nom de axe ala Bird’s Charlie Chan, I applaud his absence. With Fields reduced to scratching out a few simple, nay simplistic, songs, his able replacement (clearly Morris) and rhythm-section reliables João Lobo and Sebastian Gramss rehydrate, resuscitate, and jazzitate these mediocre melodies. Fields’ sole remaining task was to pen whiney liner notes and assign ridiculous “bitter” titles to his “compositions.” Couldn’t Morris have tackled titles too? Fields is bitter? He should be…toward whomever sold him his first guitar. — Hugh Jarrid, Swingin’ Thing Magazine
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Guitarist, sort of Chicago’s answer to Derek Bailey, although I wouldn’t swear on that, since for me one of the main things they have in common is that I’ve never made much sense out of either. This is a trio, recorded in Germany, with Sebastian Gramss on double bass and João Lobo on drums. Title isn’t obviously reflected in the music, but it sure is in the song titles: “Yea, sure, we can still be friends, whatever;” “Go ahead, take the furniture, at least you helped pick it out;” “My love is love, your love is hate;” “Your parents must be just ecstatic now;” “I was good enough for you until your friends butted in;” “You used to say I love you but so what now.” Liner notes hit even harder. Not sure where the music comes from — sublimated anger? — but it seems uncommonly focused, for once. I’ve played this record a lot on the road the last month, and it’s never let me down. The avant-guitarist has a tendency elsewhere to diddle in abstractions, but he plays with remarkable logic here — bitterness must focus the mind. The Freetet adds bass and drums, bulking up the sound and punctuating the emotions. (A-) — Village Voice critic Tom Hull, tomhull.com
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(Continued from double review with Scharfefelder.) Ganz anders dagegen die Wirkung der Bitter Love Songs. Ebenfalls in weiten Zügen Improvisationsmusik, fesselt sie von Beginn an. Fields widmet sich durchgängig der freien Jazz-Form, wie sie Ornette Coleman mit seinen einstigen Gitarristen James «Blood» Ulmer oder Bern Nix etabliert. Dessen Harmolodic-System stand wohl Pate bei den sechs Stücken voller organisierter Unordnung. Fields zieht seine steil an- und absteigenden Flugbahnen ganz in dieser Tradition der «Umdeutung des Vorgefundenen» über lineare Intervallreihen. Seine zwei technisch hervorragenden Kollegen Sebastian Gramss und der Portugiese João Lobo begleiten den Gitarristen dabei mit feinsinnigen Überlappungen, führen lebhafte Kommunikationen. Diese Musik ist free, hat gleichzeitig aber auch eine fesselnde Melodiehaftigkeit und starke Blues-Verwurzelung — ungemein aufregend. (Translated by the site’s webmaster, email him with complaints.) Quite different, on the other hand, is the effect of Bitter Love Songs. Also in the broad discipline of improvisational music, it captivates from the start. Fields is consistently dedicated to free-form jazz, as established by Ornette Coleman with his former guitarists James Blood Ulmer and Bern Nix. Its Harmolodic system was probably the model for these six pieces of organized disorder. Fields moves through steep and descending flight paths through linear interval series in this tradition of “reinterpretation of the method.” His two technically excellent colleagues Sebastian Gramss and the Portuguese João Lobo accompany the guitarist, overlapping with subtle, lively communications. This music is free, but also fascinatingly melodic, with strong blues roots — incredibly exciting. — 4 stars (out of 5) Olaf Maikopf, Jazzthetik
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El amor ha sido desde siempre una fuente de inspiración para todas las artes, incluida la música. Por su parte, la ruptura del amor ha servido también como fuente de inspiración artística, aunque no es demasiado habitual que sea el protagonista íntegro de una grabación. Esto es lo que sucede con Bitter Love Songs del guitarrista Scott Fields. Un disco que contiene seis composiciones amargas, desapacibles, con estructuras broncas, retorcidas y desasosegantes, que logran transmitir ese abanico de sensaciones asociadas tanto a la ruptura amorosa como a la desolación, soledad y rencor posteriores. La ausencia de sus correspondientes letras es suplida magníficamente por las texturas de la guitarra de Fields, especialmente en los once minutos de “Yea, sure, we can still be friends, whatever,” que el guitarrista convierte en una suerte de fuerte discusión de antiguos enamorados. Por su parte “You used to say I love you but so what now” se transforma es un tema seco y nervioso, al igual que le sucede a “My love is love, your love is hate,” mientras que “I was enough for you until your friends butted in” es una pieza desolada y llena de espacios, con un leve deje country. Obviamente, el proyecto no llegaría a ninguna parte sin la maestría de Fields y de sus acompañantes, el contrabajita Sebastian Gramss y el batería João Lobo. Ambos se encargan de tejer la red sobre la que el guitarrista formaliza sus sentimientos. Música desoladora, como (parte de) la vida misma. — Pachi Tapiz, Ritmos del Mundo
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Another improviser who tours as frequently as [Evan] Parker is guitarist Scott Fields. Chicago-born, Fields moved to Köln, Germany a few years back. On the witty Bitter Love Songs (Clean Feed CF102CD), he leads a trio completed by a Portuguese rhythm section: bassist Sebastian Gramss and drummer João Lobo. Fields’ compositions, which match liquid guitar runs, slinky bass lines and on-the-beat drumming, are still at variance with their sardonic titles. For instance “My Love is Love, Your Love is Hate,” features a spinning staccato theme from Fields that is stretched with slurred fingering until it seems that it will rupture, but doesn’t. Working in double counterpoint, the massed strings join to produce a barrage of notes, with Fields sounding as if he’s playing microtonally and Gramss slapping a backbeat. Meanwhile Lobo’s flams precede an intermezzo for ringing guitar licks. Note clusters are lobbed between the players on “You Used to Say I Love You but So What Now.” But the strategy is different. Fields’ contrapuntal chording skirts C&W picking, while Gramss resonates handfuls of low-pitched timbres. Eventually as the bassist settles on legato pacing, Fields wraps up with echoing, blues-based licks. Gramss’ bass work owes its suppleness to sonic extensions from older bass specialists such as New York’s Mark Helias, who has recorded in Toronto. His Open Loose band includes drummer Tom Rainey and tenor saxophonist Tony Malaby. — Ken Waxman, Jazzword
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“Sì, certo. Possiamo rimanere amici in ogni caso”; “Ti andavo bene finchè i tuoi amici non si sono impicciati”; “Il mio amore è amore, il tuo amore è odio”. Parte dai titoli, ma anche dalle impietose e stringatissime note di copertina la tremenda autoironia di questo disco, in cui Fields sembra voler riflettere con cadenze tragicomiche sull’amarezza e sul fatalismo degli incontri sbagliati della vita. Come quello con un musicista che “sembra apprezzare la tua musica ma poi, appena trova un ingaggio migliore, se ne va dal tuo gruppo”. Il fil rouge di una drammatica e nuda concretezza sembra proseguire con perfetta continuità in una musica suonata da una chitarra elettrica privata di ogni orpello effettistico, da un contrabbasso e da una batteria. Quindi un trio non certo insolito nel jazz moderno, ma abbastanza raro da incontrare nella discografia free. Un tratto originale accentuato da un’improvvisazione incasellata tra temi molto spigolosi ma rigorosi e da un’improvvisazione continua alle cui spalle lavora un bassista capace di porsi in linea quasi telepatica con gli altri due e la percussività del giovanissimo portoghese Lobo. Il primo è il quarantaduenne Gramss, anche lui come Fields vive a Colonia e ha collaborato tra gli altri con Fred Frith, Rudi Mahall e Tom Cora. Lobo si è già ascoltato in Italia con musicisti decisamente lontani da qui: Enrico Rava, Giovanni Guidi e Mauro Negri. In questo disco si rivela in grado di conferire proprietˆ espressiva anche quando si toccano vertici di radicalismo improvvisativo. Apparentemente è lui il regista di tempi spezzati e multiformi che sostengono una sorta di insistenza armonica in cui un’immensa gamma di soluzioni passa attraverso arpeggi chitarristici, linee atonali velocissime o un’informalità grattuggiata. 4 stelle — Gigi Sabelli, All About Jazz, Italy
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While the sardonic album title alludes to a session fraught with rancorous despair, guitarist Scott Fields’ Bitter Love Songs is, perhaps ironically, one of his most accessible efforts. Born in Chicago, but now based in Cologne, Germany, Fields recorded this date in his new home town with German bassist Sebastian Gramss and Portuguese drummer João Lobo. An iconoclast who favors unusual instrumental combinations, this is his first guitar trio recording since Mamet (Delmark, 2001), with bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Michael Zerang. In the scathing liner notes Fields explains that the unsettled themes, fitful rhythms and grating dissonances elicited by the trio are intended to invoke the nerve-wracking nausea that accompanies the impending dissolution of romance. While all of these traits are present, they are often fairly subtle; in contrast to his exotic conceptual projects, this loose trio session is actually somewhat conventional. With Fields as the principle soloist, Gramss and Lobo follow the guitarist’s lead, providing stirring rhythmic accompaniment that vacillates in tempo from casual to frantic. The majority of the tunes saunter at a buoyant mid-tempo clip with periods of intermittent turbulence. Occasionally reaching a fevered pitch, but never boiling over, the trio generates a more agreeable mood than one would expect from such song titles as “My Love Is Love, Your Love Is Hate” and “Your Parents Must Be Just Ecstatic Now.” Only “I Was Good Enough for You Until Your Friends Butted In” breaks form with a languorous abstract blues. A proponent of structured improvisation based on tone row manipulation, Fields conveys his enigmatic statements with focused intensity. He fires rapid salvoes of knotty linear cadences at regular staccato intervals from his clean-toned hollow body. At his most feverish, he conjures blistering chromatic note clusters as he scuttles across his fretboard. Together, Gramss’ elastic walking bass patterns, Lobo’s shuffling trap set ruminations and Fields’ thorny commentary coil into a kaleidoscopic mosaic of expressionistic interplay. Despite the derisive title, Bitter Love Songs is a compelling example of modern jazz guitar improvisation supported by an empathetic rhythm section. For aficionados of unfettered guitar traditions, this is essential listening. — Troy Collins, All About Jazz
Beckett
Although guitarist Scott Fields is the composer for each of the five lengthy compositions on Beckett, the music sounds very much like episodic free improvisations. The guitar-tenor-cello-percussion quartet has an unusual sound. The use of wit in places, along with occasional melodic passages, serves as a contrast to some rather noisy sound explorations. The musicians listen closely to each other although quite often they follow completely independent paths. The final results will certainly keep listeners guessing for just when one is ready to sum it all up as a freeform screamfest, the mood shifts and the band plays a spacey ballad. Listeners who are open to rockish sounds and avant-garde ideas will find this music of strong interest. 3½ stars — Scott Yanow, All Music Guide
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Beckett follows in the conceptual footsteps of Mamet (Delmark, 2001), guitarist Scott Fields’ previous project inspired by an author. Tracking the thematic similarities between Beckett’s writing and Fields’ compositions is a tenuous prospect, like any project that yields inspiration from a divergent art form. Nonetheless, the album provides a challenging and rewarding listen on its own, with or without knowledge of its genesis. From aleatoric excursions to blistering, jittery free-bop, Fields has an ear for adventurous, unconventional sounds. Christening his work “post-free jazz,” Fields’ complex, multi-part compositions reveal themselves gradually, providing ample room for solo expression and unified thematic development. Packed with intricate counterpoint and tight group interplay, these labyrinthine works blur the line between the composed and the improvised with kaleidoscopic, pre-written passages and dense, free-wheeling improvisations. Joining him for the first time are three new collaborators. Ubiquitous percussionist John Hollenbeck is a fountainhead of unique textures and unconventional rhythms, his pneumatic inventions contribute an array of percussive wonder to the session. Tenor saxophonist Matthias Schubert blends fervent angularity with a flighty, mercurial zeal, especially during his spasmodic tirade on the agitated “What Where.” Cellist Scott Roller employs a diverse approach, blending a sober, singing tone with a scathing bow attack. His lyrical turn on the pensive introspection of “Come and Go” is as delicately melodious as his assertive assault on “What Where” is jarring. The leader shines in this spartan context, his bright tone accenting a razor sharp fusillade of notes one minute, genteel chords the next (sometimes together), as on the zany swing of “Rockaby.” Although conceptual allusions to literature might suggest haughty pretension, Beckett is actually Fields’ most varied and swinging record in years. Even at their most abstract, these are engaging compositions, bolstered by zealous group interaction, rich harmonic ingenuity and stunning dynamic range. Like the work of its dedicatee, one listen to this album won’t do it justice. — Troy Collins, All About Jazz
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The guitarist Scott Fields provides a tribute to Samuel Beckett with a dense and challenging bit of chamber jazz or maybe modern classical/free music that he describes as “post-free jazz” and “exploratory music.” His concept of tightly packed compositions with noisy breaches of the oft times violent surface tempts the outer reaches of sound. Perfectly matched by the overtly quirky drummer, John Hollenbeck, these odd structures ask many musical questions, and sometimes provide answers. — Mark Corroto, All About Jazz
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Think of music you associate with Samuel Beckett and you probably think something spare, lean, minimal, Morton Feldman being the most obvious point of reference. There was, after all, their (anti-?)operatic collaboration Neither, and two of the composer’s three last completed works were Beckett-related (Words and Music, and For Samuel Beckett). But despite several striking similarities — compare Feldman’s fondness for gently permutating cells and the internal repetitions and sonic play of Beckett’s late prose — there are appreciable differences, notably the size and scale of their final works. While Feldman stretched out in the last decade of his life, almost as if he’d foreseen the arrival of the 80-minute compact disc that would become the ideal medium for the spacious, thinly-painted canvases of his late compositions, Beckett’s works became ever more condensed, distilled. (You could, though, argue that the ultimate distillation of his work was 1969’s tiny playlet, Breath, which, devoid of both actors and dialogue, lasts just 35 seconds, but there’s still some debate among Beckett scholars as to whether this was evidence of the author’s wry sense of humour, written as it was for Kenneth Tynan’s bawdy review Oh Calcutta!). Whatever, when you think Beckett you don’t automatically think of elegant and intricately crafted modern chamber jazz, but that’s precisely what guitarist Scott Fields offers us here on this magnificent quartet outing with John Hollenbeck (percussion), Scott Roller (cello) and Matthias Schubert (tenor saxophone). There’s little direct correlation that I can find between the album’s five tracks and the Beckett works they take their titles from — Breath, Play, Come And Go, What Where and Rockaby (all plays as it turns out) — but dig a bit deeper and the similarities begin to appear. One of the reasons Beckett’s oeuvre has consistently fascinated musicians is its sheer musicality: a constant sense of play between micro and macro form, a concern for motive, idea, development, coupled with a wicked ear and subtle sense of humour. And that’s exactly what Fields is working with here. Sometimes the pieces are as ferociously determined as the monologue that propels The Unnamable to its unforgettable conclusion ("I can’t go on, I’ll go on"), sometimes they appear to slump into the ditch at the side of the road like Watt. Sometimes they’re as wild and effusive as Lucky’s celebrated stream-of-consciousness speech in Waiting for Godot, sometimes they’re as still as Still. Fields’ accompanying text, not surprisingly a little Beckettian itself, seems to be apologetic in tone (“All that improvisation. Anti-Beckett, if anything. I have a lot to answer for. Pray for me”) but there’s nothing to say sorry for. Beckett was apparently fond of Franz Schubert; I’d like to think he might dig Matthias too. The playing of all four musicians throughout is exemplary, the scores cunningly crafted and intriguing to the point of being frustrating (and if that isn’t Beckettian I don’t know what is) and the recording superb. What more could you ask for? A sequel, perhaps. — Dan Warburton, Paris Transatlantic Magazine
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Beckett was recorded by a strong quartet consisting of Scott Fields (electric guitar), John Hollenbeck (percussion), Scott Roller (cello) and Matthias Schubert (tenor sax). The leader uses “post-free jazz” and “exploratory music” as definitions to help us poor reviewers writing about his vision, in this case setting Samuel Beckett’s short plays in terms of sonic rendition. The CD contains five tracks of what one could call “radical comprovisation,” a no-genre-all-genres series of structural possibilities for instruments to dialogue calmly or look for litigation. On a first approach we could think about entities like Curlew or Doctor Nerve; sometimes things get a little more complicated, though. Fields privileges a clean timbre on his axe, which is fundamental to maintain absolute clarity in his pretty entangled lines. Roller excavates imaginative figurations while remaining an ideal partner for dissonant unisons and ever-evolving, intertwining dissertations with Schubert’s non-conservative vocabulary. Hollenbeck is a bright-minded participant to a collectively sensitive interplay that never ceases to amaze, alternating basic patterns, uncontrollable rolls and sheer bedlam with self-controlled gestural balance and almost exhilarating musicianship. Everything in this disc tends to the instantaneous generation of attitude-permeated linear and textural counterpoint, whose results add spice and intelligence to a music which is only apparently difficult to penetrate, revealing instead many layers and secrets that will make adventurous listeners seriously happy. An advertisement for well-regulated iconoclastic playing, Beckett is one of those releases carrying the same weight of a powerful political statement. Listen and learn, then decide if you still need the velvet touch of deadly boring “jazz.” — Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes
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Cologne-based expatriate American guitarist Scott Fields frames this memorable quartet session as a tribute to existential Irish writer Samuel Beckett (1906-1989). Unlike Beckett’s almost static works featuring lonely humans trying to articulate the unexpressive however, Fields’ compositions manage to be both stirring and affecting. Although the longer tracks incorporate Beckett-like extended pauses, elsewhere all-encompassing, multi-voiced counterpoint recalls not the Irish dramatist’s bare-bones style, but the overlapping dialogue of film makers such as Robert Altman. American playwright David Mamet received a similar homage from Fields in 2000 and the subsequent years have fortified the guitarist’s playing and writing…or is it acting and directing? Dramatis personae in this work include a cast of experienced actors…er, players. German tenor saxophonist Matthias Schubert exposes timbres ranging from pumping atonal slurs to echoing, chesty vibrations; versatile American percussionist John Hollenbeck busily propels the splintered beat with his regular kit, while using water-glass-like pings, pealing chimes, and what sounds like rubber-balls bouncing on snare tops for added scene-setting. Yank expat cellist Scott Roller, of the legit Helios String Quartet, adds cross-swiped col legno jabs as effortlessly as vamping walking bass lines. While the staccato “Play” projects quadruple counterpoint from all concerned — demonstrating call-and-call rather than call-and-response — the nearly 30-minute agitato “What Where” is Fields’ chef d’oeuvre. With his knob-twisting distortion and slurred fingering on show, the guitarist elaborates the accelerating explosive theme on top of solid rhythms propelled both by Hollenbeck’s unaffected smacks, slaps and pops and near-identical stop-and-start voicing of scrapes, whistles, stops and vibrations from cello and saxophone. Thematically conclusive throughout, Beckett transcends its derivation to become CD that is certainly more polyphonic — and often more theatrical — than Beckett’s writing. — Ken Waxman, Coda Magazine
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Beckett features the Scott Fields Ensemble in a tribute to the work of playwright Samuel Beckett (1906-1989). Running helter-skelter and varied with much emotion, the quartet members interact as characters in a play, letting their conversations come and go without restraint. Tenor saxophone, cello, drums and percussion and the leader’s fiery guitar make each composition sparkle with animation. They prefer short, choppy statements that move back and forth from one artist to the next. Whereas most Free Jazz ensembles fit the pieces together in such a way that they’re able to deliver their music simultaneously, Like the script for a play, each artist here becomes a character in the composer’s arena. They juggle their musical lines with such seamless delight that it all seems quite natural. However, the music runs detached and choppy for the most part. While much of the program flits back and forth, there’s considerable space between the lines. Fields’ comfortable guitar remains capable of expressing a wide range of emotion, from quiet inhibition to rage. Cellist Scott Roller fulfills the role of melody-maker as well as providing the underlying rhythmic pulse. John Hollenbeck colors with swirling activity, while saxophonist Matthias Schubert contributes considerable thematic material. Beckett was a minimalist who allowed his work to grow increasingly cryptic. What a perfect match for Scott Fields, who points his latest improvised project in the same direction with much success. — Jim Santella, Cadence Magazine
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Let it not be said that Scott Fields cannot learn from his betters. As it was pointed out by this very critic, although certainly by other like-minded arts analysts as well, his 2002 Delmark recording Mamet failed in its stated goal of alleviating the chore of reading or watching dramatic works. For reasons one hopes were simply incompetence rather than malice or deeply buried self-destructive urges, Fields omitted much of the meat and instead proffered creamed spinach. Perhaps here I must remind the forgetful reader that the Chicago string-bender offered an alleged time-saver which was to permit the harried customer to listen to instrumental condensations of literary masterworks rather than struggle with the written word or sit through interminable video realizations, not to mention live presentations, by far the most time-guzzling method for the consumption of a playwright’s reflections. Although these aural Cliff Notes were an admirable goal, the pick-pusher shot himself in our foot by not only severely abridging the texts of five David Mamet plays, but also by keeping the exact placement of the cuts to himself and perhaps his A&R man. All educational value was abandoned because the listener, no matter how attentive, was provided no hint of where acts or scenes or even speeches began or ended. The uproar, led by your correspondent, was deafening. In this mismanaged mea culpa, Fields sets every word in five Samuel Beckett plays. Before providing his purportedly improved play-stitutes, he lifts his middle finger off the fretboard of his customized jazz guitar and extends it to you, the listener. Rather than get right to work explicating Beckett’s notoriously convoluted wordplay, Fields tenders the playwrite’s infamous “Breath,” an entirely wordless!! work. Very funny Fields. Ha ha. For the remaining four plays the so-called composer provides a rhythm and pitch for every uttered word. Alas, the result in no more useful than that of Mamet. Rather than exposing the words, Fields camouflages them with audible fog. He muddies the musical waters with incomprehensible extra sounds and notes. Worse yet, at times he layers lines, rendering the meaning of Beckett’s dialog distressingly distant. Even with text in hand, this listener found lines exceeding hard to hound dog. Sniffing out meaning became more work than it was worth. Perhaps if this were Fields’ first folly, hope could be held that illuminating his errors would lead someday to a more functional educational aid. But this political season has already exposed the pitfalls found in platefuls of false hope. Thanks but no thanks Fields. I would rather peruse Ron Paul’s proposals than fish for meaning in this bait-and-switch swamp of words rendered irrelevant. — Hugh Jarrid, Swingin’ Thing Magazine
We Were the Phliks
This album does not reveal its secrets easily. The proceedings start slowly and sparsely enough, but, very quickly, we are thrust headlong into a densely packed quartet of intense contrapuntal improvisations, full of long blisteringly fast lines. The occasional rhythms prevail, but they are quickly usurped by further post-post-Bop interregistral runs. The results are initially exhausting, and on first listen, Thomas Lehn and Xu Fengxia provide the only relief in the form of varied texture. Lehn’s synthwork has always been a pleasure to hear, endlessly inventive and compatible with almost anything. Xu Fengxia is new to me, but her work here is brilliant, exhibiting the best timbral traits of European improv peppered with what I can only describe as touches of pan-ethnicity. Sudden shifts in volume, pitch, and duration make her contributions forceful but beautiful. Only the final track presents some welcome moments of repose, and, I might add, some of the most intricate and gorgeous group improv on the disc. Long drones swell, shimmer and fade, guitar gliding in softly to obscure itself in saxophone shadows. When the lines return, they are slow, almost languid, the players seemingly more willing to accommodate space. As interesting and engaging as these pieces ultimately can be, Fields’ playing strikes me as too similar throughout. Perhaps it’s just a sound I don’t like, or with which I need more acquaintance, but almost constant runs executed in a very homogeneous timbral spectrum don’t help matters. The fourth piece in particular holds incredible promise, for all members of the ensemble, and I hope that this group will continue exploring in that direction. — Marc Medwin, Cadence Magazine
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Guitarist Scott Fields points out in the liner notes to his latest record We Were The Philks: “It is my habit to set myself some rules for each project I compose. Otherwise the world is just too big for me. For my contributions to The Phliks book I made myself a rule that every tune would include traditional notation, graphical notation, and improvisation. In the Phliks pieces I would blur the distinction between notated and improvised material.” When one listens to the 70-minute work, a distinct sense of confusion comes about. What is composed and what is improvised? Then again, when the music is this solid, does it really matter? Fields has assembled a stellar cast for the project. His ensemble includes Thomas Lehn on analogue synth, Matthias Schubert on tenor sax and Xu Fengxia on guzheng. Fields’ music sparkles with an unspoken intensity. While his guitar hums with electric sparkles, put together with Xu Fengxia’s distinct hollow guzheng, it is a killer. Add to this Schubert’s intensely satisfying tenor gale blows and Lehn’s other-worldly synth slabs and you’ve got yourself a tight band kicking up a storm. As the sounds alternate between more serene passages and those that simply rock, the music moves in a natural, nearly cyclical way. If there is one factor that sticks out of the mix, it’s got to be Thomas Lehn and his squeaky synth. In applying simple pressure tactics, he often times convinces the other players to follow along into alien territories he favours to tread. Wildly satisfying record from beginning to end. — Tom Sekowski, Gaz-Eta
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Scott Fields posits a somewhat idiosyncratic attitude toward musical partnerships. He takes his time and isn’t averse to what at first may seem like incongruous collaborations. This new Rogue Art release corroborates that characterization with what might be first in terms of instrumentation. On paper, the combination of electric guitar, tenor saxophone, analog synth and guzheng might seem an oil and water proposition, but Fields balances notation with improvisation over four long pieces and ably proves its viability. Each piece appears to be named after friends and patrons of the four. The disc title refers indirectly to a phenomena often cited by Fields where bands in which he is involved commonly coalesce under his umbrella ensemble rubric. The shift in this case came not from a domineering sense of self-importance, but a gradual realization of Fields as focal point for the group. Thomas Lehn frequently acts as agent provocateur, his synth set-up the most mutable in terms of accessing taxonomically unfamiliar sounds. At times he swirls and eddies around the fringes, inserting gurgles and blips amidst the others’ more circumscribed interplay. In other spots, as on the opening of “Brad and Laura Winter” he surges into pole position, sounding a bit like Sun Ra behind a phalanx of buttons and keys and building a pump-organ-meets-calliope chorus in concert with Fengxia that in a weird way recalls the darker carny side of Tom Waits. Mattias Schubert is similarly liberal in his palette on sax, moving from cottony breath sounds to skirling cries and even relatively straight melodic statements. As the strings contingent Fields and Fengxia make for a consistently catalytic pairing, the latter moving from fragments of Chinese melodies to spates of kitchen-utensils-on-iron-grate dissonance while Fields plays everything from faux classical patterns to hook-toothed blues arpeggios. Lulls do occur, but rarely for very long and each of pieces achieves a pleasingly organic tractability. Variety is the spice and the four pack plenty in. A word too to Fields clipped cadence liners which are as clever, whimsical and self-deprecating as ever and an apposite appendix to the music. — Derek Taylor, Bagatellen
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Utilizing the textures available from one instrument which assumed its modern form sometime between the 10th and the 15th century and another 20th century invention considered antique because it’s merely analogue, guitarist Scott Fields has created an almost 70½-minute CD that’s as audacious as it is rewarding. Naturally being improvised music, We Were The Phliks also depends on the interpretive skills of the four players as much as the graphical or conventional notation Fields uses for these four long pieces. A mixture of experiences and cultures, the players are Fields, the Chicago-born guitarist who has lived in Köln, Germany for the past few years; two German-born Köln residents: tenor saxophonist Matthias Schubert and analogue synthesizer player Thomas Lehn; plus Xu Fengxia, a native of Shanghai, who now lives in Hövelhof and plays the guzheng, a large Chinese zither whose most familiar shape was established by the 15th century. All the players are open to new experiences however. Fields, whose collaborators have ranged from fellow guitarist Jeff Parker to oboist Kyle Bruckmann, and Schubert, who is part of a co-op trio with tubaist Carl-Ludwig Hübsch and trombonist Wolter Wierbos, manipulate traditional jazz instruments to this end. Lehn, whose extended wires and in-put plugs characterize his axe of choice as a pre-1980s model, often plays with fellow sound explorers like saxophonist John Butcher. As well, despite her instrument’s antiquity, Xu has recorded with Free players such as percussionist Roger Turner. Operating in non-traditional territory, the sounds created here don’t replicate expected timbres anyhow. Xu’s guzheng vibrations sometimes resemble those of a double bass or a banjo; Schubert is as likely to output wispy flutters and tongue slaps as honks and legato runs; and Lehn’s synthesizer does double duty as an electronic keyboard and to trigger otherworldly oscillations and drones. While Fields does comp, his licks would never be confused with those of Barney Kessel. At points in fact, settling on a fashion in which to simultaneously interact with Schubert’s altissimo squeaks, Xu’s triple-stopping banjo-like peals and Lehn’s disconnected electronic pulses, the guitarist tries out crunchy, downward string trebles that balance between Bluegrass runs and Hawaiian echoes. When the sonic diffusion among the four doesn’t evolve in rondo-like fashion, it does so in dual counterpoint. For instance the pleasantness of Xu’s chromatic plinks and plunks is contrasted with Fields’ staccato reverb; or Lehn’s vibrating electronic drones are texturally contrasted with Schubert’s trilling smears. Elsewhere, distortions from the two electrified instruments create cumulative, polyphonic crackles and sputters. In still other spots, the saxophone’s twittering phrasing turns tenderly legato, while the guzheng’s zither-like qualities disappear into lute-like glissandi. Each player’s techniques and ruses protrude with structured logic during the more than 24½ minutes of “Assi Glöde.” Stuttering barks triggered from the synthesizer, plus distorted chording and stop-time rasgueado from the guitar escalate to contrapuntally contrast with Schubert’s irregularly paced growls and Xu’s chromatic plectrum plucks. Midway through, while the guzheng player’s abrasively flat picks, the reedist’s fluttering vibrations and split tones are shadowed by overlaid, distorted guitar runs. Soon with the combined pulsations making up a continuous electro-acoustic background, single reed puffs move to the foreground. Eventually, a new passage of motor-driven oscillations from Lehn encourages Fields to abandon single-stroke licks to create a throbbing crescendo of sprawling multiphonics. That is quickly amplified by Schubert’s reed snorts and spetrofluctuation. With the climax attained, a few final saxophone breaths and echoing guitar fills confirm the piece’s conclusion. On earlier CDs, Fields has celebrated such accomplished literary figures as American playwright David Mamet and Irish dramatist Samuel Becket. Featuring this unique mixture of almost ancient, near-modern and contemporary textures, the oddly titled CD’s literary precedent could be a time-shifting science fiction novel that intersects concepts of past, present and future. Overall, We Were The Phliks is definitely a good read…that is listen. — Ken Waxman, Jazzword
Song Songs Song
Guitarists Jeff Parker and Scott Fields’ Song Songs Song (Delmark) is about as experimental as it gets on a domestic label. The duo utilizes feedback, distortion, samples, snippets, loops, wah-wah and many other things on a program of material that doesn’t follow any discernible pattern. Sometimes it is uncanny, other times rather incomprehensible, but it is always challenging and intriguing. “The Fields of Cologne” and “LK 92” are the two shortest pieces and come closest to containing conventional devices as a set (or at least recognizable) melody, middle section and conclusion. Otherwise, the pair blurs and obliterates notions about soloists and accompanists, switches places at unexpected times, fades in and out of pieces, varies the volume in unusual sequences and offers a work that can be enthralling, confusing and annoying, sometimes all at once. — Ron Wynn, Nashville City Paper
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This strange electric guitar duo recording is perhaps one the oddest and most un-jazz-like of the vast Delmark catalogue, which mostly deals with jazz and blues dates from the fifties onwards. Chicago-based Jeff Parker does have some jazz credentials, playing with the Chicago Underground and Fred Anderson, yet he can’t really be pegged as most of the current Chicago underground continues to pursue diversity and unpredictability. Wisconsin based Scott Field is also a great improviser, as well as a unique composer, his more than a dozen releases also embrace diverse approaches and an ever-changing cast of players to work with. Each of the six pieces here also cover a variety of approaches. Jeff’s “LK” is a calm, haunting and even jazz-like in its rather melodic guitar tone, it is a sort of ballad that is quietly deconstructed as it evolves. “Untitled, 1968” sounds like it could be Fred Frith and Henry Kaiser (maybe a Dead space jam?), with all those volume pedal swirls, free yet focused noise sections, but never going too far out. By “Untitled, 2004,” they start to go further out, faster, freer and more intense, but never losing sight of each other as they work together, trading ideas and licks, suspending time as they weave lines together into one sound/blend. “Untitled, 2001” has both Jeff and Scott playing with that warm, relaxed jazz guitar tone, Les Paul meets Joe Pass? Actually, they move through a variety of approaches quickly, casting off one idea after another. “Untitled, 1955” is a long work that again shows a quite a bit of unorthodox techniques, twisted harmonies, intricate noise-work, both subtle and intense abstractions, q and a sections, quickly tapped harmonics, alien textures and some nice quiet and spooky moments. Jeff Parker and Scott Fields work quite well together, combining forces and blending their sound into one story-like journey. In a blindfold test, most folks would have little clue who they really are listening to. — Downtown Music Gallery
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Quite possibly one of the most adventurous records yet to emerge from the highly respected jazz and blues label, Delmark, Song Songs Song pushes the limits of what can easily be considered traditional jazz improvisation. Jazz guitarists Jeff Parker and Scott Fields play with and against each other in a studio session that will certainly be remembered for its risk taking elements. Guitarist Jeff Parker, known for his work with numerous projects including Tortoise, Isotope 217, The Chicago Underground pairs up with Scott Fields, a free jazz guitarist and composer who has hovered around the avant garde jazz scene since the late 1960’s. These two play a sequence of pieces that run from the melodic to the downright dissonant. Book ended by Parker’s more delicate pastoral pieces, the bulk of the record finds the two guitarists in stop and go pointillistic free debate. Volume pedal swells, scraped strings and distorted chromatic runs all fly by as the guitarists play an endless game of cat and mouse. Melodic fragments emerge from the pieces, but are just a quickly discarded to explore more textural territory. Call and response improvisation is the conceptual backbone of this session. One can almost visualize the two sitting side by side copying runs from one another, then abstracting them, before turning them inside out and playing them back again. Not an easy listen for those with pre-conceived notions of what jazz improvisation should sound like, Song Songs Song is a brave release on Delmark’s part and makes for perfect blindfold test material. Play this one for your guitar geek friends and see if they can guess even one of the players. — Troy Collins, Junk Media
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On any recording that pairs players of like instruments, the primary duty to the listener is to serve as a device in which the ability of each musician can be judged, a forum for finding who plays best, who wins and who loses, who is the better man. How else can real, relevant ranks be established? But Windy City label Delmark this time blows a foul new sound in stereo guitars and as such presents what its crew of producers and A&R men must have thought a practical joke of blustery subtlety. Well this critic is not amused. Where the packaging should be informative, it is just as lazy as a summer wind. The label’s high command commits a Nuremberg’s worth of crimes against all CD consumers. First of all they leave the curious reader blowin’ in the wind, unable to tell one track from another, since these windburnt bureaucrats didn’t even see fit to include titles for the inner four “songs” on this song-parched Frisbee of acrylic and laser dimples. The next disappointment is the substitute for comprehensible liners notes with a monsoon of unrelated and meaningless words. But what turns this wayward wind of inconsideration into a presidentially declared disaster area of thoughtlessness is Delmark’s decision to jettison identification of which “musician” is playing on which channel. Judgments as to historical context, racial tendencies, and plain old chopsmanship are rendered near impossible without clear delineation of roles and responsibilities. Instead of paying a competent typographer to set a simple sentence of x = right channel, y = left channel, the label’s leaders leave little leads as to which guitar slinger is slinging where (subliminal, no doubt, since these louts heap scant care on the very lifeblood of their business: CD-buying individuals). Careful inspection of the packaging revels several clues, however. First of all, there is the cover photograph, which shows Jeff Parker on the left and Scott Fields on the right (perhaps also reflecting their political leanings). Turning the jewel box a single rotation reveals a second, smaller photograph on the CD’s rump. Again Parker is on the left and Fields is on the right. Returning to the front cover, Parker’s name is on the left and Fields’ is on the right, defying all alphabetical convention. On the rear, Parker’s name is again left and Fields’ right. This pattern, in fact, recurs wherever the names appear side by side. It is clear that this wind cries Parker left channel, Fields right. With that knowledge established firmly in mind, Delmark’s smokescreen clears on the epic battle between Parker’s solid jazz credentials (think Charles “The Yardbird” Parker or Maceo Parker more so than William Parker or, least of all, Evan Parker) and Fields’ wet-behind-the-ears eagerness but inability to please patina. Now the listener can see who is where. Parker grooves; Fields ruts. Parker swings; Fields dangles. Parker burns; Fields flickers like a candle in the wind. Nothing would please me more than to say Parker prevails. But in the end Fields’ demons destroy whatever musical content once lurked in channel left, leaving these Song Songs Song, Wrong Wrongs Wrong. — Hugh Jarrid, Swingin’ Thing Magazine
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Blistering, ferocious, harsh, abrasive, confrontational—quite often, the adjectives that are typically used to describe death metal, grindcore and metalcore have also been used to describe the more militant side of free jazz. Charles Gayle and post-1965 John Coltrane—two examples of avant-garde jazz taken to a brutal extreme—are not for the faint of heart any more than Slayer or Cannibal Corpse. In fact, some of Coltrane’s most devoted fans have a hard time comprehending his post-1965 work. But the AACM has, on numerous occasions, demonstrated that not all avant-garde jazz favors a take-no-prisoners aesthetic, and Song Songs Song easily represents that kinder, gentler school of outside playing. This 2004 date, which finds Jeff Parker and Scott Fields joining forces for a two-guitar duet, is not about in-your-face confrontation; instead, the guitarists favor a pensive, reflective approach to outside playing. Song Songs Song is far from a straightahead bop album; the performances are as abstract and cerebral as they are spacy and eerie. But they aren’t harsh or militant by any means; nor are they dense. While extreme density can give Gayle and post-1965 Coltrane—or, for that matter, Slayer’s death metal—a claustrophobic quality, Parker and Fields thrive on the use of space. Instead of trying to cram as many notes as possible into a solo, they choose their notes in a more careful, deliberate fashion. That isn’t to say that the two guitarists don’t improvise; improvisation and spontaneity are a major part of what they do on Song Songs Song. But it’s a thoughtful spontaneity—a thoughtful way of exploring the abstract and the intellectual. Admirers of the AACM school of outside expression will find a lot to like about the dialogue that Parker and Fields enjoy on Song Songs Song. 3½ stars — Alex Henderson, All Music Guide
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Parker and Fields’ freeform soundscapes are by turns disturbing and disarming. Fretting and bowing their instruments and blending samples with extraneous sounds, the dialog between their electric guitars moves from elation to hallucinatory. — Vintage Guitar Magazine
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Song Songs Song finds Fields and Parker claiming quite a bit of common ground with Parker’s trademark fluidity blending nicely with Fields’ clean abstraction. Parker’s “LK 92,” the album’s opener, exhibits the only real groove on the record with an ominous chord progression from Fields providing a fertile landscape through which Parker negotiates his limber strolls. When Fields joins the jaunty ramble, the guitarists’ interplay tantalizes with gorgeous, interwoven lines and hurried passages that are more Jim Hall than Derek Bailey. They leave this relatively accessible real estate behind with the four Fields-conceived “Untitled” pieces (the composition listings actually read as medium descriptions for visual works of art as in “Untitled, 2004, Dried Blood On Gauze, Elastic Strip With Adhesive Backing”). These selections are markedly unstable objects with extended periods of reflective calm interrupted by agitated, tussling chatter from the six-stringed interlocutors; volume knobs are played with, pedals are engaged, and a bit of dirt is thrown on the canvas at times. Despite all the labor involved and some inspired moments, the tracks tend to meander aimlessly, never really marshalling a truly compelling reason to stick with the hike for its duration. “The Fields of Cologne,” another Parker composition, finishes the record, thus fulfilling the simple logic of the album’s title. Much freer than “LK 92,” the introspective piece practically begs for the sinewy cornet of Rob Mazurek (Parker’s colleague from the Chicago Underground assemblies) to slip into the conversation. It is evident after listening to these two very different recordings [Song Songs Song and christangelfox] that Fields succeeds most profoundly when he casts his conceptual net far and wide. — Kevin Lian-Anderson, One Final Note
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Guitarist and composer Scott Fields dislikes easy categorization. He’s created nonsensical terms for his music to prevent critics from pigeonholing him. He defined The Scott Fields Ensemble “as consisting of everyone who has performed or recorded with the group at any time. Although not all members are present at any given performance or recording, they are there in spirit when not corporeal.” His liner notes for this duo release with guitarist Jeff Parker are equally ornery, stealing potential critics’ rhetorical thunder. The six slippery improvisations live up to his rhetoric; all of them actively defy musical limitations. Superficially, the pieces suggest an array of approaches: minimalism, free improv, Morton Feldman’s austere structures, blues, rich jazz. Parker and Fields, however, go beyond any one approach, edging toward Cage’s definition of sound: pitch, duration, timbre and loudness. The duo works in a larger narrative arc with ample use of repetition, silence, subtle variation and texture. Fields’ half-serious titles express something of the duo’s intentions. Each one sounds like the name of a painting, and describes their collage approach to structure. On “Untitled, 1968, Bing Cherry Juice, KY Jelly, Ketchup on Vellum,” Parker and Fields glue together a series of spiky feedback bursts, tangled runs, volume-knob fade-ins and fade-outs and percussive strums. “Untitled, 2004, Dried Blood on Gauze, Elastic Strip with Adhesive Backing” begins like a musical still life as single notes, chords, plucks and scribbles briefly flicker. Isolated moments take center stage before the duo plunge each into a thicket of feedback and metallic ringing. The artists continually lead the listener in different directions. On “Untitled, 2001, Soot on Slate,” the two guitarists excavate the melodic content, and focus on single tones, chords, or progressions. They examine their finds from every angle until they transform it completely. The pair wanders a labyrinth, not searching for its center or exit, but exploring each corner, route and dead-end. Parker and Fields shadow each other throughout so closely that separating them becomes fruitless. Both use a sharp attack and quick decay, quiet dynamics, stunted phrasing, and very few, if any, effects. Their guitars on “Untitled, 1955, Crayon on Kellogg’s Corn Flakes Box” stand naked. They clip phrases with rapid volume changes, chime delicate harmonics, grate the strings with their picks. The cumulative effect is at times powerful, at others dismayingly restless. Two Parker pieces nicely bookend the album. The bubbling rhythmic lines of the album opener “LK 92,” reminiscent of Ali Farka Toure’s buoyant guitar work, act as a palate cleanser, while “The Fields of Cologne” serves as an after-dinner cappuccino. These pieces’ more overt melodies lighten the album’s unceasing investigation. — Matthew Wuethrich, Dusted
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Chicago Guitarist Jeff Parker’s ascent has been as smooth and deft as his playing. He works ably in multiple contexts, not only in Tortoise and the various Chicago Underground line-ups but also as a sideman, backing Fred Anderson and other Chicago notables. His duo partner on this disc, guitarist Scott Fields, is somewhat less known, but that says nothing about the quality of his work. There’s a clear division of labour, and an obvious aesthetic divergence, on Song Songs Song. Four of the disc’s six tracks are credited to Fields, and titled like works of visual art — “Untitled, 2001, Soot On Slate”; “Untitled, 1955, Crayon On Kellogg’s Corn Flakes Box”; “Untitled, 1968, Bing Cherry Juice, KY Jelly, Ketchup On Vellum”; “Untitled, 2004, Dried Blood On Gauze, Elastic Strip With Adhesive Backing”. These are more abstract, and difficult, that the opening “LK 92” and closing “The Fields Of Cologne”, both composed by Parker. This is not to suggest that Parker is uneasy in noise/improv territory. Though he may jazz things up more frequently than his partner, he’s fearless through the disc’s 63 minutes. Indeed, his lyricism seizes the day at more than one point, making Fields’s more obstreperous gestures feel like stunts. This is particularly true during “Untitled, 1968 …”, which occasionally sounds like Parker and Fields have been replaced by Joe Morris and Orthrelm’s Mick Barr. Still, this CD isn’t a mismatch, rather a fascinating conversation between two equally talented, but philosophically distinct compatriots. — Phil Freeman, The Wire
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Guitarist Jeff Parker teams with an electric-guitar-equipped Fields for a series of duets on Song Songs Song (Delmark), and, not surprisingly, the results are just as free as Christangelfox — and just as boring. The album opens and closes with pieces by Parker; sandwiched in between are four “Untitled” pieces by Fields where the pair contrast dirty and clean tones (“Untitled, 1968”), share a wealth of dissonant harmonies (“Untitled, 2004”) and spend many minutes trading complicated phrases reminiscent of Parker’s work in the math-rock group Tortoise. The incessant exploration produces not a single memorable moment. Why doesn’t Jeff Parker ditch arty pretension and spend more time honing the group sound of a record like “The Relatives”? — Russell Carlson, Jazz Times
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Although we are told that first impressions are usually correct (the “go with your gut” approach), the liner notes for this release nearly derailed my enjoyment of the music. The notes, such as they are, were written by Fields and consist of a stream-of-consciousness collection of words and phrases in a postmodern style full of in-jokes and self-references, but also a lot of information if you stay with them (including a somewhat snide reference to Kali Fasteau, who does not even know Fields). Some of them are funny, even witty, and Fields actually makes a mistake (“Hendrix’s flat nines” [the Foxy Lady chord] is really a sharp nine), but one phrase is repeated quite a few times: “pitch and timbre over time.” Boiled down, then, that phrase is exactly what this music is about. Fields gives some more hints, bolding and capitalizing the words melody, harmony, orchestration, rhythm, morphology, taxonomy, and osmosis, which are sprinkled through the notes. The title of the album Song Songs Song probably refers to the fact that tracks 1 and 6 are credited to Parker and tracks 2 through 5 to Fields. After a few close listens, one can easily hear motives or phrases, if not melody, that are presented, passed back and forth and developed, textures that thicken and thin, sound types that range from harmonics to severe distortion, slowly played sections next to ones with speedy runs, free rhythm juxtaposed against straight time. Neither player can be called a traditional guitar player on this release, but Parker (left channel) is definitely the more lyrical and sentimental—“LK 92” has a very strong and (dare I say) pretty melody with a poignant secondary answering phrase; and “The Fields of Cologne” has an atmospheric “Frenchness” about it that draws one in, plus it has a definite quote from a jazz standard. Fields is much more in your face (note the song titles), and gets more “out there” sounds from his guitar, which come from the world of electronics and stomp boxes, sometimes scraping and pulling the strings (a picture shows him using a violin bow on his strings), sometimes using the volume knob to swell whatever distortion or feedback he is getting at the moment, and hence comes across as more experimental (despite the fact that there are obvious motivic figures), but always in control. There is a certain messiness about the fast playing, but that might also be purposeful. I also have no idea how the players communicated their intentions to each other; how much was written out or how much was musical or visual cues. The tunes many times just trickle out, so unless you listen intently, where one track ends and another begins might be missed. In sum, after a rough start, this album grew on me, and might be a winner for those who like to hear instruments pushed to the extreme, but within audible frameworks. — Budd Kopman, All About Jazz
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On Song Songs Song Parker and guitarist Scott Fields engage in a freeform, improvised route amid track titles that would make Captain Beefheart proud. The duo partakes in scratching and clawing via lightly amplified electric guitar lines and contrasting sound-shaping maneuvers. On the opening “LK 92,” perhaps the most accessible piece of the bunch, Parker and Fields render a laidback jazz-blues motif topped off with an affecting melody and random shifts in pitch. Although the guitarists occasionally crank it up and with just enough amplification to generate some bite, the majority of the set is structured upon irregular ebbs and flows. The duo uses space as a means for maintaining an element of surprise while also employing volume control techniques and assimilating a wide-ranging latitude of viewpoints. The 17-minute improvisation “Untitled, 1955, Crayon On Kellogg’s Corn Flakes Box,” is part minimalism and dissonance, embellished with clanging harmonics and odd phrasings. The picture painted here is that of two shrewd operators establishing a few guidelines, yet not knowing or caring where they’ll end up. 3 stars (out of 5) — Glenn Astarita, DownBeat
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Jeff Parker and Scott Fields are two of Chicago’s finest guitarists. They’ve each had diverse histories and while their musical paths have crossed before (on the sextet recording Denoument), this is the first time they’ve played together as a duo on disc. Parker has a pedigree playing in some of Chicago’s more unusual ensembles: Isotope 217, Chicago Underground Duo, and Tortoise. Fields strikes me as a more restless individual, working primarily with various musicians (i.e. Marilyn Crispell, Francois Houle, Hamid Drake, and many others) but never settling in with one group. But Parker and Fields, although very distinctive players, almost mesh as one on this set of surprisingly low-key duets. Both can be highly abstract players when the mood strikes them but, here, they sound like two guitarists firmly rooted in the Jazz guitar tradition. The opening section of “Untitled 2001, Soot on Slate” sounds like something Jim Hall might have attempted back in the early 1960s (when he was playing on recordings like Gunter Schuller’s Jazz Abstractions). Although four of the tracks are based on themes, this one is an improvisation. Oddly enough, it has a compositional feel to it. The two circle lazily around each other with melodic lines and dissonant yet gentle accompanying chords. The whole thing holds together nicely. The opening and closing tracks on the disc (Parker’s “LK” and “The Fields Of Cologne”) are also in the gentle, quieter vein. And “Fields Of Cologne” has a truly beguiling melody. But there’s a lot of variety in this program. “Untitled, 2004, Dried Blood On Gauze…” contains some furious scrabbling and some of the most intense music of the set. Yet, even at their most frenetic, Parker and Fields are listening players and never seem to get in each other’s way. Although both players are noted for their use of effects boxes, preparing their instruments, etc., the majority of this disc refrains from that approach. Probably the most effects-laden track is “Untitled 1968, Bing Cherry Juice…” (love these titles) and it has some of the finest playing of the set. Although it must also be said that this track contained some rambling passages that made it go on far too long. But this disc is, for the most part, surprisingly free from endless noodling that sometimes plague the duet format. Song Songs Song finds two of today’s most forward thinking guitarists (who also just happen to be from Chicago) engaging in fruitful dialog. — Robert Iannapollo, Cadence Magazine
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That said, The Relatives is generally more conventional-sounding than the flights of fancy on Song Songs Song, Parker’s collaboration with experimental guitarist Scott Fields. The CD starts off innocently enough. The Parker-penned “LK 92” pits a low-register, loping, minimal groove against swinging jazz-inflected melodies; the language wouldn’t be out of place on a Metheny or Frisell release. By the album’s second track, the Fields composition “Untitled, 1968, Bing Cherry Juice, KY Jelly, Ketchup on Vellum,” we are off to the races! The piece is a thirteen and a half minute assemblage of various avant-garde trademarks — feedback, atonal soloing, pointillist textures — brought together with a degree of whimsy and improvisatory character. Parker and Fields have a certain chemistry; they manage to find order within the chaos and the various diverse juxtapositions work, delightfully. Even more cohesive is “Untitled, 2004, Dried Blood on gauze, Elastic Strip,” which has a considerably appealing misterioso character; if Webern wrote for two electric guitars, this might be the result! — Christian Carey, Signal to Noise
christangelfox
Three musicians gather to make music. Each plays an instrument and percussion that comes in a set of four. Their percussion comprises scrap metal, stone, and wood, all of which float on foam slabs. They begin and then go on for the next hour playing the composition of Scott Fields. The music on christangelfox is influenced by Asian cultures, but as Fields notes in the liner notes, that intention is not formal. But it does give a pith and air to the process, whether it be in the loop and swell of the cello from Matt Turner or the cry and plea that emanates from the clarinet of Guillermo Gregorio. And Fields lets his guitar lilt on a classical progression or lets the notes thrill to a flamenco rhythm to lend a different dimension. There is plenty of interaction and conversation. The devolution takes some nice turns and twists, even if much of it is essayed in an equable atmosphere. But it is in this environ that they thrive and give vent to their imaginations. There are moments, though, when they ruffle the calm, and while it is just a passing thought, it does bring in a likeable ruffle. One of them comes around the 26th minute, when the metal and the wood percussion gets into an animated discussion while Gregorio curls, twists and blows breathy notes. In tandem they create one of the more breathtaking moments on the record. Despite its length, and given that this is one continuous performance, it holds interest. — Jerry D’Souza, All About Jazz
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Fields likes to devise purposely meaningless catchphrases for his music — his latest is “transparent music.” I guess I’ll rise to the bait: that seems to me a pretty good description of his admirably lucid hour-long chamber-trio piece christangelfox. The band consists of Fields (on nylon-string guitar), clarinettist Guillermo Gregorio and cellist Matt Turner, all three of whom also make use of a “percussion array”: four pieces of scrap metal donated by a sculptor friend, four pieces of stone, four pieces of wood. Despite the disc’s striking title, the music is not especially devotional: this is the sound of calm thought rather than prayer. It’s a rapt nocturne — languid and whimsical, full of soft hoots, wistful cries, and flintstone-spark showers of plinks and clanks. Boundaries become blurred: improvisation and composition are virtually impossible to tell apart, and the piece’s even, unhesitating inner pulse overrides the usual distinctions between free time and meter. You hear this pulse most clearly in an eight-minute episode at the piece’s centre that sounds like an anxious, sped-up version of Messiaen’s “Louange à l’Éternité de Jésus.” (Maybe there’s something to the disc’s devotional title after all….) The homemade percussion becomes more sporadic from this point on, and as the mood becomes darker and intenser one almost misses its cheerful, irritating jangle. In the end the piece doesn’t so much resolve as come to rest, the piece’s now-familiar themes restated softly and less surely, the musicians spinning them out finer and finer until at last they break. At times christangelfox recalls Gavin Bryars (“Allegrasco,” especially) or Morton Feldman, or some of the AACM’s gentler excursions, but basically this is completely sui generis. “Transparent music”? Maybe you could call it mood music — though what mood, I couldn’t possibly say. You’ll just have to listen and find out. — Nate Dorward, Cadence Magazine
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Scott Fields has toiled in relative obscurity since the late 60s—languishing, like the Freakwater song goes, in the Midwest like some old romantic fool—but his burgeoning body of work (he didn’t start actively recording and releasing his own material until the early 1990s) has collected a significant coterie of critical admirers. The guitarist is noted for the craft and care he demonstrates when choosing his collaborators, and I don’t think one can quarrel with the conscripts he dragooned for the two efforts in question here. Song Songs Song is a duo session with fellow fretman Jeff Parker, while christangelfox is a trio date with reedist Guillermo Gregorio and cellist Matt Turner. By my lights, christangelfox’s minimalist excursion constitutes the stronger work; its measured approach and subtle instrumentation—each player textures the unfolding drama with startlingly effective percussive accents coaxed from pieces of wood, metal, and stone, “all floating freely on open-cell foam slabs” according to Fields’ own liner notes—evokes a mystical space that is unsettling one moment and curiously uplifting the next. Never one to be boxed in conceptually, Fields has referenced the deep musical history of myriad Asian cultures (particularly in his use of the unorthodox percussion arrangement) to construct an hour-long solemn meditation grounded in a single scale. Together, the musicians spin a paradoxical fabric that is intensely ascetic even while it unspools its complex narrative thread. One particularly arresting passage occurs at the midway point when Fields introduces a delicate ostinato guitar figure that heightens the tension while Turner and Gregorio awaken to the call and respond with searching expressions. It is a testament to Fields’ remarkable facility for blending composition with free improvisation in a seamless fashion. — Kevin Lian-Anderson, One Final Note
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All three players on guitarist Scott Fields’ Christangelfox are credited as percussionists, clinking and tinkling various instruments that aren’t listed in the notes but are probably akin to anything shiny on the shelves at any Williams-Sonoma. As the clattering, nonenchanting and ceaseless din of the rhythmless percussion hangs in the background, Fields noodles in minor modes on a nylon-string guitar, Guillermo Gregorio drones eerily or chirps curtly on clarinet and the usually excellent cellist Matt Turner bows wilted lines in accompaniment, sounding utterly uninspired. It’s an hour-long stab at creating a stark, abstract landscape that fails because the musicians hardly sound engaged and rely too heavily on the tiresome free-jazz gambit of answering one non-sequitur squawk with another. Christangelfox ends up a waste of time for all concerned. — Russell Carlson, Jazz Times
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There are some musicians who stand out from the crowd, and guitarist Scott Fields certainly qualifies. Not that his music is overtly provocative or extreme, but there is an unquestionable singularity to his vision, one more readily identifiable as contemporary music rather than jazz or free-form improv. A case in point is this single, flowing, fifty-nine minute piece performed by him, on acoustic guitar, Matt Turner on cello and Guillermo Gregorio, playing only straight b-flat clarinet. More than that, all musicians play percussion, striking what seem to be metal plates or tubing in ways reminiscent of Balinese gamelan ensembles (which the leader himself alludes to in his insightful notes). In doing so, one may well be reminded of John Cage’s translation of Far Eastern musics into the contemporary classical vernacular; there’s an underlying reflective, meditative quality to the work, which is spiked by the clattering percussion passages. While the bulk of the performance is improvised, written passage surface throughout, like signposts along the way of a mysterious journey in time, space and tone color. Accordingly these are never bright and bold, but subdued and dark, yet no less intense, like the deep ultramarine hue that adorns the cover. — Marc Chénard, Coda
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Fields adopts an unplugged approach, playing nylon-string classical guitar; it is fascinating to hear him, stripped of amplification, effects, and feedback, improvising strictly in the pitch-rhythm domain. One part Stockhausen post-modern chamber music and one part ethnomusicological exploration, Christangelfox is a haunting, sonically beguiling work. — Christian Carey, Signal to Noise
15=15 Plunderplunderphonics
On a dark day last year I had the displeasure to review two recordings that featured guitarist Scott Fields as leader or co-leader. Those leaden releases, which I called “boring” and “just as boring,” not to mention “a compete waste of time,” could not have prepared me for Fields’ brilliant new two-CD set 15=15 Plunderplunderphonics. With restraint I would never expect from Fields, this well executed set is a two-hour-long romp that is almost as kickass as a real, live Batmobile. It could make a Massachusetts liberal whistle Dixie. On 15=15 Plunderplunderphonics Fields chose tunes rife with melody, tunes which are perfect lines for this exercise in harmonizing with like timbres. Each track is enjoyable. Though his pen still drips ink left over from his days as a pretentious New Music-head in the 90s, Fields’ mind-bending melodies are just the sort of complement needed to create an album that never bores and begs for repeated spins. 15=15 Plunderplunderphonics is rich with references to other works and other cultures. You can hear hints of literally hundreds of familiar riffs. The ensemble’s nutso version of “Michelle” is maybe one of the best Beatles-gone-jazz treatments yet. Later Fields showcases an impeccable sense of time and lets pretty, curly-cue licks blossom in a medley that combines Jerome Kern’s “Yesterdays” with Paul McCartney’s “Yesterday.” And not content to hop on the klezmer bandwagon, Fields directs the album into deeper, darker, less trustworthy corners of the Jewish folk tradition. The tunes on 15=15 Plunderplunderphonics yearn and cry “Oye Vey,” imparting a feeling of spiritual insatiability that sounds and feels very, very Jewish, almost sneakily so. As a guitarist, Fields flexes his virtuoso chops on 15=15 Plunderplunderphonics, revealing a middle ground between the bop lines of Joe Pass and Django Reinhardt’s Euro-flavored gypsy voodoo. His skills will send young guitarists to the woodshed and cause older ones to consider hanging up the ax forever—Fields is that frustratingly great. The way he can daisy chain quirkily voiced chords and ascend toward ecstasy only to climb back down on a simple, quarter-note run never gets old, even though he does it over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Guitarheads especially will drool over this one, as he catches up to strike a slightly muted chord as if to say “gotcha,daddy-o” and then sets off again to hunt down his next shivering victim. I’ll be damned if he isn’t hiding a third hand inside one of his suit sleeves. An extended solo during “Tea for Two” that serves as a summary of his style, with dazzling triplet waterfalls, chunk-a-chunk chord vamps and arpeggiations that suggest an extra few fingers on his right hand and perhaps a few more on that hidden third-hand. The sixth string on the Gibson Scott Fields Signature SF-336 that Fields plays during this set never booms, just as the highs notes never sound too bright. The guitar’s glowing tone—the Gibson SF-336 guitar is the oh-so-rare archtop that guitaraholics dream of just seeing, let alone playing—comes in a tightly contained space that complements Fields’ control. That sustaining, clear-as-rural air SF-336—it’s a shame there aren’t more of those out there to wax records with—will sooth the souls of the hopelessly guitarded, but it should ring gorgeous to anyone’s ears. Working up a sweat to 15=15 Plunderplunderphonics would be a troublous task. Although the ensemble does offer a decent share of lively grooves, the record exists as more of an introspective love album, lilting and hopeful in spots, agonizingly woeful in others. Rather, playing the role of an urban griot, Fields tries to hip us to the history of jazz. 15=15 Plunderplunderphonics is a storyteller’s work. Yet, the music burns, even if as an ember rather than a blast furnace. If they can capture this kind of energy in the studio, then I’m sure they can produce it before an audience, which means that a night when the Scott Fields Ensemble’s name is on the marquee would be a night well spent. — Russell Carlson, Jazz Times
From the Diary of Dog Drexel
Four pieces of Scott Fields with addition of a fifth piece assembled by Gregory Taylor using soloist improvisations of the members of band, a zigzagging job this, lost between sour and sweet melodies; child of so many outlines, as well as enormous bursts of fire from the trumpet of Greg Kelley. The breaths of the Nperign school become diluted in a series of melodic contortions that are in fact fascinating, creating solutions certainly not new but surely captivating as few have been. Composition and improvisation keep pace with each other, making swells along the way on evolutions—sometimes very much Coleman-like—of Guillermo Gregorio on alto sax and on clarinet, and in a caustic vein that animates and guides the actions of the good Kelley on the trumpet. In truth there is very little in the way of real ostinati, nervetheless, the first track flows a little strangely, lunar, between pursuing winds and percussion that has a ceramic quality; the discourse changes remarkably in the case of Pissed with its structure perennially in the balance between hysteria and moments of apparent calm where the tension is really palpable before falling headfirst into an abyss of dissonance, sort of ecstatic in form; a kind of ritual emigration guided by the contortions of the winds. The following track, Bummed, churns up new phantoms of the house of Kelley, replacing the roughness that more usually characterizes them with a form much more harmonious and round where each instrumentalist seems concentrated in the desire to create a crafty meditative viewpoint. This is a work that lives on the impulses of the musicians but also on their ability to hold back those impulses in favour of writing that’s sometimes delicate and escaping to where wide spaces can contribute to the creatiion of an evocative and oniriche atmosphere without however ever diminishing a good dose of uncovered nervousness. Agitated reveals itself to be the central nucleus of the work with its structure run through, improbably, by the winds and the percussion and stretched strings, and again pauses and divisions in which discords are revealed to exist in order then to be abandoned, in a vision that, as much as it owes to the past seems also to be projected towards the future, but without the slightest pretention. The piece concludes with Medicated that contrasts with the rest but perhaps precisely in virtue of its difference it seems to be perfectly assigned to close this work in the appropriate manner. Cold without doubt, but necessary to restabilize, after the smoothness of the previous movements, the sacred germ of doubt. The final that loses itself in silence leaves us in possession of a work of remarkable beauty to add to the list of things received. 3½ stars — Marco Carcasi, Kathodik
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For this recording, composer Scott Fields assembled a core group from the cream of Chicago’s improvising scene (with the importation of trumpet ringer Greg Kelley from Boston) to have them investigate his scores that seek to blur the line between written and improvised music. Generally, those lines aren’t too tough to discern, his composed music sounding something akin to the post-serial style employed by, for example, Anthony Braxton in similarly defined works. Unfortunately, there is also a like dryness and whiff of academic orientation in this writing as well; one gets the vague impression of having heard these motifs on many an occasion over the last 30 or so years. The improvisational sections also carry something of an oil and water quality. On the one hand, some of the musicians bring a jazz-like conception that often seems at odds with the tenor of the pieces while, on the other, someone like Kelley, one of the finest and most imaginative players on the free improv scene, sounds constrained by the format, unnecessarily corralled into a relatively narrow area. The group sound itself is usually quite appealing given the range of instrumentation involved, and percussionist Carrie Biolo stands out for her strong contributions, but the lack of expansiveness in the scoring leaves one feeling stifled after the first four pieces. The final track, Medicated (this dog evidently was having a pretty bad day), is another bowl of tapioca entirely. Here, Gregory Taylor has taken taped samples of each musician improvising on his or her own and assembled a rich, fascinating work that goes a long way toward salvaging the whole affair, a gust of cool, crisp air entering a musty room. — Brian Olewnick, All Music Guide
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Musique concrète, as an archaic variety of New Music, caught noises with a butterfly net and pierced them. In a poetical travesty of this procedure, composer Scott Fields and his ensemble switch themselves on and off like a tape, let noise, silence, explosion, implosion, color-thunderstorm and pale nothing succeed one another hard and fast — or weave concrete things into one another, images which come up, overlap, discolor, change. Everything is hand-made and mouth-blown, everyone is a juggler, amply gifted to wake up illusions and re-extinguish them. Shadow-voice behind the clarinet becomes hectic breath, becomes railroad, uncanny in approaching, as in effacing its own decipherment. It is a dream wherein the unbiased eye sees symbols, signals, signs all in off-shades, restlessly moved, pulled by invisible strings. Pictographs arise like suns: glassy swimming desert-flowers of vibraphone and crotales, cheeky siren-glissandi with which the oboe — unappreciated princess of jazz-instruments — plays the trumpet… A winter-cold epilogue though — as if logic was not allowed to remain without a punch line — throws a net over the sounds after all: electronic mirage constructs the decay of color and outline. Fogs are lifting, threatening, clearing up — and Scott Fields’ thrashing guitar sound emerges; echo of rage, naked king in the heath. — seven boxes (highest rating) Michael Herrschel, Neue Musikzeitung
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“The best plan for listening to this music is to treat it as a whole rather than worry about what came from where,” writes Chicago-born guitarist Scott Fields of this five-movement suite (if you’re interested in the title, check out the scrambled eggs on Fields’ website, www.scottfields.com) featuring Fields himself, Carrie Biolo on pitched and unpitched percussion, Guillermo Gregorio on alto sax and clarinet, Kyle Bruckmann on oboe and English horn and Greg Kelley on trumpet. The first four movements (“Conflicted”, “Pissed”, “Bummed” and “Agitated”) also require a conductor (Stephen Dembski), whereas the finale (“Medicated”) was constructed by Greg Taylor using Max/MSP software to work on solo improvisations by the ensemble members. Rossbin regulars expecting another helping of austere, spare improvisation (the label has released excellent and highly acclaimed work by Annette Krebs, Andrea Neumann, Toshi Nakamura, not to mention Greg Kelley’s second solo album) are in for a surprise; in both instrumentation and structure, this has more in common with Varése and Birtwistle than it does with Taku Sugimoto. Fields intentionally blurs the distinction between composed and improvised material in accordance with the fine AACM tradition he grew up with, with the result that “FTDODD” joins the 4CD Rastascan box set of Anthony Braxton’s Ghost Trance Music and Masashi Harada’s 1999 “Condanction Ensemble” as another great example of top-notch improvisors bringing their skills to bear on material of a more composed / structured nature. Bruckmann and Gregorio have plenty of opportunities to showcase their outstanding multiphonics, and those familiar with the extraordinary sonorities Kelley can summon from his trumpet on his solo recordings will be duly impressed by his mastery of Fields’ arching melodic lines. After the swirling, snarling tour de force of “Pissed”, “Bummed” is a wondrous, strange, bassless landscape inhabited by muffled plunks from Biolo’s xylophone and Fields’ nylon-string guitar and plaintive wails from the wind instruments. “Agitated”, despite its title, is a decidedly fresh flowing tangle of delicately scored melodic lines, before Fields stands aside in the final movement to allow Greg Taylor to extract tissue samples of solo material and subject them to cold laboratory scrutiny with his Max/MSP software. The resulting music is, like the entire album, intriguing and impressive, if a little frosty and detached. Of course, hardcore improv snobs will dismiss it as too composed and aficionados of the likes of Ferneyhough and Finnissy will probably find it too loose, but that’s the risk you run if you want to set up shop in this particular no man’s land. However, as this album demonstrates time and again, far from being barren wasteland between two frontier checkpoints, the territory in question is bursting with miraculous new life forms. — Dan Warburton, Paris Transatlantic Magazine and Signal to Noise
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Bow wow. Woof woof. Give this critic a melody. Yip yip. Arf arf. This old man wishes Scott Fields had stayed home. On this recording “composer” and “guitarist” Fields again lifts his leg on you, the listener. Fields and his littermates —brass jockey Greg Kelley, oboemann Kyle Bruckmann, squeaky-toy specialist Carry Biolo, computer programmer Gregory Taylor, and Italian woodwind-wielder Guillermo Gregorio—have broken loose from their leashes, in spite of the presence of alleged conductor Stephen Dembski. One would think—nay, pray—that choo-choo chief Dembski could teach these new dogs a few old tricks, but throughout it is clear that these pups are barely paper trained. If only Fields had provided proper positive reinforcement, a tasty treat here and there to reward the musician and ultimately the CD-purchasing public. But where there should be swing, these mongrels rock ‘n’ roll over and play dead. Where there should be harmony, there is a cacophony of howls and whimpers. Luscious tone is hiding in the basement, replaced with distressed scratching and panting. Grrrrrrrrrrr. My recommendation? Do not buy this little doggie in the window. And if one is left on your doorstep, take it to the pound to have it “put to sleep” as indeed will be the fate of anyone who adopts this homely mongrel. — Hugh Jarrid, Swingin’ Thing Magazine
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“My name would be ‘Dog Drexel,’” confides guitarist Scott Fields in his online biography, explaining the title. From the Diary of Dog Drexel comprises four compositions called “Conflicted,” “Pissed,” “Bummed,” and “Agitated.” You might justifiably conclude that Fields has concocted a grungy soundtrack to an imagined life of sleaze. But you’d be wrong, though it’s certainly fraught with tension and brittle attitude. Evolved from the system of generating non-tonal scales Fields has worked with since entering the orbit of composer Stephen Dembski, this harmonically ambivalent music often evokes unease. Dembski conducts a quintet featuring Fields on electric and nylon-stringed acoustic guitar, Greg Kelley on trumpet, Guillermo Gregorio on alto sax and clarinet, Kyle Bruckmann on oboe and English horn and Carrie Biolo on vibraphone, marimba, crotales, and unpitched percussion. There’s a cut-glass feel to the ensemble: multifaceted, hard-edged, and refractive. Luminous with the shimmer of vibes, they can sour when the reeds clash, defiant when the trumpet asserts itself, or angry and threatening when Fields’s guitar growls and lashes out. A fifth track, “Medicated,” is credited to all five players plus Gregory Taylor who processed materials from their improvising. Its meltdown of definition into more fundamental ambivalence, volatile temperaments, and even the remnants of Fields’s spiteful soloing, dosed and deliquescing into computer-generated numbness, make for a fitting conclusion. — Julian Cowley, The Wire
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Scott Fields is yet another musician interested in melting the boundaries between so-called jazz and so-called classical music. He’s usually identified with the free music side of things through recorded and other sessions with the likes of bassist Michael Formanek, percussionist Michael Zerang, clarinetist Franois Houle and drummer Hamid Drake. Yet the Madison, Wis.-based guitarist also has advanced a method by which chamber ensembles like the one on this carefully designed CD can develop extended improvisations. Seemingly a close cousin to Butch Morris’s theory of conduction, Field’s process is built on a tonal system that Stephen Dembski, a University of Wisconsin-Madison music professor, who conducts the quintet here, develo