Home Again
Label:
Konnex
Web:
http://www.konnex-records.de/
Personnel:
Dave Fox, keyboard; Bruce Eisenbeil, guitar; Pat Lawrence, bass; Jon Marc
Ryan Dale, percussion.
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By Pico
Dave Fox teaches piano courses at Greensboro College in North Carolina, but
the stuff he's puttin' down with his combo The Dave Fox Group couldn't be
any more opposite of what you'd find in a classroom setting. It simply has too
much panache for formal academic study.
The DFG, consisting of Fox on various keyboards, Jon Marc Ryan Dale on
drums and Pat Lawrence on bass, make music that doesn't bend for
convention. Heck, it doesn't bend for anything. It's free-form jazz that finds
kinship with Cecil Taylor, Paul Bley and just about anybody who's recorded for
ESP-Disk. They compose their songs collectively on the spot, most likely as
the tape is rolling.
Underneath all that chaos, Fox & Co. are playing close attention to tonal
colorings and ever-shifting moods. Fox himself uses Fender Rhodes, Hohner
Clavinet, Hammond B-3 and a Yamaha Grand Piano in ways that they were
never used before, making the sound a little louder, a little more aggressive
and a lot more unpredictable...making it almost like a keyboard-based
version of Bruce Eisenbeil's Totem.
For the DFG's third release Home Again, they did in fact bring in Eisenbeil to
add his one-of-a-kind guitar to the mix, and the results are blessedly
explosive. Whenever the Master Timbralist is added to the equation, the whole
dynamics of the music changes; Eisenbeil is one of the few guitarists today,
like Bill Frisell, who's capable of doing that consistently.
Fox (and the rest of the band) adapts his own style to counter, accentuate and
bob and weave with Eisenbeil. He prefers to make his mark more subtly, often
providing shadings and textures that sometimes set direction and often is the
guy holding everything together.
Highlights can be found everywhere. "The Well Prepared Suitcase" starts as a
study in minimalism but climaxes with a dual between Fox's rootless grand
piano and Eisenbeil's string plucks and scrapes. The epic "An Encounter With
A Street Troll" goes down so many alleys and finds an adventure in each one.
The kinetic, unhinged "Of All The Tapas Bars In The World..." and the sweet,
tonal but still unencumbered "Home Again, For Now," are my personal faves
Fox has been selling Home Again on his own, but he's recently found a
distributor, the German label Konnex Records, so hopefully this bold, brash
CD will be easier to obtain. In the meantime, just follow the link below for
obtaining one of the more interesting, inspiring and energetic whack jazz
records to come across this desk since, well, the one by Totem.
If there's one this to learn from this record, it's this: not all college professors
are the meek, bookish types. Then again, Home Again is not a class.
It's a clinic.
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THE DAVE FOX GROUP FEATURING BRUCE EISENBEIL - Home Again
By Massimo Ricci
Besides being a jazz specialist pianist Dave Fox is also classically trained,
although you might not guess it by listening to Home Again, the third CD by
The Dave Fox Group after 2004’s Gatewalk and 2007’s If These Songs Could
Talk. Comprising the leader on grand piano, clavinet, Fender Rhodes and
Hammond B-3 organ plus Bruce Eisenbeil (guitar), Pat Lawrence (bass) and Jon
Marc Ryan Dale (drums), this incarnation of the ensemble couldn’t play a
minute of formulaic music if one threatened them at gunpoint. Impertinent
approaches to improvisation pullulate all over the record and outrageously
climactic manifestations of lawlessness abound, with just the slightest
exception of the conclusive - and vaguely, distantly tonal - “Home Again, For
Now”, whose character mostly derives from jangling chords and overdriven
strategies from Eisenbeil’s heavily processed axe.
An opposite example is constituted by “The Well-Prepared Suitcase”: the
musicians strive to implement a rather unstructured type of instant invention
without caring too much about the ribaldry that some of these semi-educated
noises might evoke, generating a rebellious feeling in the (until then)
unperturbed listener. “An Encounter With A Street Troll” – what a fabulous title
for a piece – is probably the ideal symbolization of the band’s risky
demeanour, chock full as it is of sudden increases in the fury-to-calmness
ratio and striking exuberance at one and the same time.
Eisenbeil’s clear-sightedness in alternating distortion and purity during
incessant circumventions of normalcy is as always astonishing – cultivated
punk, if there was ever a better representative – and Fox receives
wholeheartedly whatever is thrown his way, counterattacking with
idiosyncratic commitment bathed in the sound of instruments from the 60s.
Lawrence and Dale smirk appreciatively, swapping footnotes and oddball
permutations that hypothetically should never be allowed in a “rhythm
section” (ha!).
But this is the fractal tempo of real life’s enigmatic attractiveness, and –
contrarily to the welcoming seduction of hypocrite gleaming – this raw charm
entices more and more with each listen.
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JazzReview.com
By Glenn Astarita
Cutting-edge free-jazz and experimental guitarist Bruce Eisenbeil joins North
Carolina keyboardist Dave Fox and his group for an aggressive and genre-
crushing sojourn. Fox looms as a Renaissance man here as he helps anchor
the quartet with swirling organ patterns, and dirty Fender Rhodes
implementations. It’s a revved-up electro, free-form gala with thrills a
minute, akin to a rapidly-paced cinematic thriller.
Fox’s wily keys and Eisenbeil’s buzzing and flickering licks generate gobs of
excitement here, as the rhythm section flexes its muscle via asymmetrical
pulses and sweeping patterns. In effect, the band surfaces as a combustible
music-making machine. Yet they occasionally temper the various flows while
embarking on reengineering processes. At times, Fox sprinkles airy keys
across the top, and goes toe-to-toe with Eisenbeil on several occasions as
they activate a rolling thunder type game plan.
The musicians render a few nip and tuck, free-form dialogues amid liquefying
themes and massive deconstruction efforts. At times, Eisenbeil conjures up
lucid thoughts of how Hendrix might perform within these musical environs.
On “An Encounter With A Street Troll,” Fox’s manic organ voicings present a
frenetic underscore to a sequence of fractured motifs, shaded with circular
storylines. And the band ventures into minimalist territory. However,
Eisenbeil lets his imagination soar on “Home Again, For Now,” where his
phased, ‘60s rock guitar voicings might sound like George Harrison delving
into a psychedelic-drenched cosmic breakdown. In sum, this is a persuasive
and thoroughly hip album. They play tricks with your neural network
throughout.
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Downtown Music Gallery
By Bruce Gallanter
Featuring Dave Fox on keyboards, Bruce Eisenbeil on guitars, Pat Lawrence on
bass and Jon Marc Ryan Dale on drums. Keyboard wiz, Dave Fox, has
collaborated with Eugene Chadbourne & Frank Gratkowski, is on the staff of
Greensboro College and is presently finishing up his Doctorate at Columbia
University. This is Dave's second disc as a leader and it features the great
local out/jazz guitar wizard Bruce Eisenbeil. This disc was recorded in
Durham, North Carolina, not far from where all the members of the quartet
except Bruce come from. Right from the opening piece, "Leaving the City", we
are off into free but focused soaring. Dave Fox seems to be playing electric
piano and organ, his tone at times somewhat similar to Bruce's guitar who
often manipulates his tone with a variety of devices, wah-wah, distortion and
such. The quartet often sound as if everything is in flux and moving in waves
together. What this most reminds me of is the early seventies, before terms
like fusion were invented. What makes this special is the way guitar and
keyboards constantly swirl around one another, answering each others lines
with inter-connected parts. Like the magic moments in a Grateful Dead jam,
this quartet sounds like they've been playing together for a long time and can
contemplate each others moves. I am not familiar with either rhythm team
member, but they sound swell throughout as they weave their way around one
another magnificently. It is hard to explain just what it is that makes this so
incredible, you just feel the exhilaration as they all sail together ever so
tightly. Time to check out Dave Fox's first disc. If it is nearly as good as this
one, it is indeed another must have. – BLG
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Global-Mojo.com
“Leaving The City“ the opener is called and jumps at the listener with nerves
cracking big city noise from Dave Fox’ keyboards, Bruce Eisenbeil’s guitar, Pat
Lawrence’s bass and Jon Marc Ryan Dale’s drums. Thus an exiting journey
starts. The “Well-Prepared Suitcase“ leads to the presumption that the
musicians view themselves with quite a bit of self-irony, and also “Airports
And Me“ will make some people smile with knowledge. “An Encounter With A
Street Troll” begins playful like a children’s game, but by and by develops into
a rather haunting experience, and you’ll be happy to catch some breath and
enjoy some lyrical moments by “Nightfall In Taos, New Mexico”. Atonal and
dissonant collages characterize the album – and how could it be different with
these guys playing. But this is not at all meant as an end in itself. If you
describe the natural course of the river Vltava by music in the 19th century
the outcome will sound like Smetana’s composition and be adequate. If you
describe a journey in the 21st century, it turns out adequate, if it mirrors the
atonality and dissonance of our world around and our worlds inside, and the
Dave Fox Group achieved precisely this successfully. That there is room for
beauty anyway is not only revealed in the final title track „Home Again“, which
carries the wise addition: “For Now“.
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All About jazz
By Eyal Hareuveni
The third release of the Dave Fox group, augmented now by avant-guitarist
Bruce Eisenbeil, presents free improvised music at its best. This is
adventurous music that's raw, muscular, unstructured, intense, idiosyncratic
in its risk-taking approach but still cohesive in a unique way.
The group is comprised of North Carolina's Greensboro College music
educator Fox (here on Fender Rhodes, Hohner clavinet, grand piano and
Hammond B3 organ) and New York-based Eisenbeil on guitars—quite often
processing their sound—alongside Fox's musical partners, bassist Pat
Lawrence and drummer Jon Marc Ryan Dale.
The quartet begins with a dense free-form improvisation, "Leaving The City,"
exploring sonic possibilities through constant changing rhythmic patterns,
while the jagged fretting of Eisenbeil and distant keyboards of Fox add an
atmospheric edge. Eisenbeil leads "Of All The Tapas Bars In The World..." in an
energetic, dense pattern of chords that surprisingly turn into a standard blues
scale, but Fox's keyboards color it in cosmic psychedelic tones. "The Well-
Prepared Suitcase" begins as an unstructured exploration of sounds from the
quartet's instruments but culminates in an arresting duet between Eisenbeil
and Fox on piano, each going to the extreme.
"Airports And Me" is a more structured and patient duet between Fox and
Eisenbeil as Dale and Lawrence join in—all four looking for a common pattern
vertically in a standard manner, pushing the music forward while locking on a
certain rhythm, but at the same time in a horizontal manner, thereby
expanding the piece's sonic envelope. "An Encounter With A Street Troll" is
another dense piece with similar fractured structure and sudden changes,
where Fox's B3 channels it into a kind of early fusion alley while Eisenbeil's
intense bluesy fretting may be inspired by the same era but pushes this piece
into stratosphere. After the spare and mysterious improvisation of "Nightfall
in Taos, New Mexico," the quartet concludes in a more straight-forward
manner with "Home Again, For Now," inspired by cosmic sixties psychedelic
blues.
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Jazz Impro NY
By Gary Heimbauer
“What I happen to be experiencing in my life, and what you happen to be
experiencing, is what makes me, me and you, you. If musical improvisation is
about an individual expressing themselves, and we are experiencing things in
our lives that are very deep and meaningful, then we should expect our lives
to correlate to our playing. That’s when our playing becomes realistic enough
that people who hear it say, “Oh yeah – I feel that too, even if I don’t know
what it is.”
http://www.jazzimprov.com/guides/ji_nyc_V05N01.pdf
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