“La cosa più difficile in musica è ancora scrivere una melodia di diverse battute che possa funzionare da sola. Questo è il segreto. Quanto più la tecnica viene perfezionata, tanto più diventa meno essenziale: chiunque può acquisirla in modo brillante. La cosa fondamentale è l’elemento vitale – la melodia – che dovrebbe essere facilmente ricordata, sussurrata e fischiettata per strada. Senza questo, tutta la tecnica del mondo resta lettera morta”.
BROKEN SHADOWS, Broken Shadows
Così Darius Milhaud, citato da Brandford Marsalis nelle note di copertina (ci torneremo) di questo bel disco dedicato alla sacra trinità di Fort Worth, Texas: Dewey Redman, Ornette Coleman e Julius Hemphill. Broken Shadows è frutto dell’incontro di musicisti le cui strade si incrociano da una vita: 35 anni di collaborazione per Chris Speed (sax tenore) e Tim Berne (alto sax), altrettanti per Reid Anderson (contrabbasso) e Dave King (batteria). Il quartetto ha preso vita nel 2017 con queste regole: nessun pezzo originale, nessuno spartito sul palco, nessuna prova ed assoli brevi. Restando dentro questo perimetro, nell’omaggio ad Ornette Coleman (otto pezzi su dodici sono suoi) emerge soprattutto l’elemento melodico: “In un’epoca in cui il brano viene usato come veicolo per l’improvvisazione, con questa band il veicolo è il brano stesso” (ancora Marsalis). Interplay, groove, esposizione nitida del tema, improvvisazione: non ci sono grandi novità in questi dodici tracce, che suonano comunque fresche e in your face nella loro monumentale, scabra essenzialità. La personalità (importante) dei musicisti fa un passo indietro per lasciare il centro del sipario al profilo dei brani: dall’incipit travolgente di “Street Woman” al proto hip-hop sghembo di “Body” di Hemphill sino alle immortali “Dogon A.D.” (sempre Hemphill) e “Song For Ché” (Charlie Haden) l’album è un tributo divinamente suonato e perfettamente pensato. Non ci convince, tornando alle note di copertina, l’affermazione di Marsalis, secondo cui “molti musicisti sono caduti nella buca del coniglio dell’innovazione a spese di tutto il resto, mentre esprimono preoccupazione e disappunto per la diminuzione del pubblico (non rendendosi conto che questa è una situazione a loro stessi dovuta: che deliziosa ironia)”- Non è questa la sede per approfondire il discorso e senz’altro ubi maior minor cessat, ma la pensiamo diversamente, per il poco che vale. Broken Shadows resta un lavoro perfettamente a fuoco, ispirato ed affilato e senza nemmeno un secondo di musica in più rispetto al necessario.

https://www.thenewnoise.it/ombre-infrante-nelle-imperfette-misure-della-luce-quattro-dischi-intakt/

Voici un vibrant hommage à Ornette Coleman: "Broken Shadows" est l'un de ses titres. Un hommage rendu par deux saxophonistes de premier plan.
A l'alto, Tim Berne, à la discographie abondante, dont on va isoler trois albums: "Theoretically", duo avec Bill Frisell, "Spirit Image" avec Dewey Redman ou "Science Friction" (jeu de mots à propos de l'album Science Fiction d'Ornette Coleman).
Au ténor, Chris Speed, qui a fait partie du Blood Count de Tim Berne: ils jouent ensemble depuis 1992. Il a aussi enregistré avec le pianiste russe Simon Nabatov ("Plain") et a fondé un trio avec Dave King, le batteur du présent quartet.
A la basse, Reid Anderson, un fidèle du pianiste Ethan Iverson, qui a fait partie de The Bad Plus, comme Dave King (album "Made possible"), qui a enregistré aussi avec Bill Carrothers et Craig Taborn.
Au répertoire, huit compositions d'Ornette, de "Street Woman" à "Una muy bonita", mais aussi "Comme il faut" gravé avec Dewey Redman et Don Cherry (album "Crisis"). Pour le reste, des compositions de deux complices d'Ornette: "Walls Bridges" de Dewey Redman qui a été enregistré avec l'alto sur l'album "Science Fiction" mais aussi "Song for Che", un des grands thèmes de Charlie Haden composé pour le Liberation Music Orchestra et que Ornette a gravé avec Dewey et Charlie sur l'album "Crisis". Enfin, deux compositions, d'un héritier Julius Hemphill, soit "Body" et le très lyrique "Dogon A.D." aux résonances africaines. Un fameux chassé entre alto et ténor, l'un tissant le thème que l'autre détricote fiévreusement galvanisé par la rythmique, mais parfois avec une belle unisson initiale (Dogon): une explosion de free jazz vouée autant à l'improvisation qu'à la sublimation des thèmes;
Un sublime album entre contemporanéité et souvenir d'un passé proche et toujours vivace;
https://www.jazzhalo.be/reviews/cdlpk7-reviews/t/tim-berne-chris-speed-broken-shadows/?fbclid=IwAR1ntLPDltx960BM8k9NuuaSEpvya9Qo0O5jzyw2mycIrNkOD3Hk9b45JLw

Acht der zwölf groß- teils keine vier Mi- nuten langen Stücke stammen aus der Fe- der von Ornette Cole- man. Und doch decken sie - zwischen Ele- gie und Energie - ein überraschend breites Spektrum ab. Sozusa gen in Originalbeset- zung - Tim Berne (as) Chris Speed (ts), Reid Anderson (b), Dave King (dr) - holen die kongenialen Musi- ker aus dieser Konstel- lation alles raus. Ab- wechslungs- und erfin- dungsreich, alert und druckvoll liefern sie den Beweis, dass Free Jazz auch ordentlich swingen und grooven kann. (Intakt)

The album features four exceptional jazz musicians doing what jazz musicians do: create unique sounds that articulate feelings and thoughts in ways we didn’t understand before hearing their music.
Listen to “Street Woman” and “Broken Shadows” here (but start with “Broken Shadows”:
There’s a melancholy in the stretched notes in the title song “Broken Shadows” that is more longing than sadness. The songs can feel like a long walk on a rainy day when you’re thinking about your life choices, mulling regrets, but finally deciding you’ve done alright and are pretty happy with the outcome.
Branford Marsalis’ liner notes provide an excellent description: "Harmonic data does not create emotion; the ability to change color in ones sound does. This is something that Broken Shadows understand, be it explicit or implicit. The twelve tracks range from lamentation, or insouciant swagger, to utter joy, and all the colors in between."

https://kareem.substack.com/p/kareems-weekend-boost-jan-14-16

The 10 best jazz albums of 2021
7. Tim Berne/Chris Speed/Dave King/Reid Anderson - Broken
Shadows
New York altoist Tim Berne is famous for knottily wrought originals, but this punchy all-covers set with fellow saxophonist Chris Speed, and the Bad Plus bass/drums pairing of Reid Anderson and Dave King, pays vivid tribute to the music of Ornette Coleman, Charlie Haden, Dewey Redman, and Julius Hemphill. The pieces are succinct and memorable, the playing right on the money.

Michael Toland (The Big Takeover)
NEW RELEASES
1. Tim Berne-Chris Speed-Reid Anderson-Dave King, Broken Shadows (Intakt)
2. James Brandon Lewis Red Lily Quintet, Jesup Wagon (Tao Forms)
3. Ghost Rhythms, Spectral Music (Cuneiform)
4. Marc Johnson, Overpass (ECM)
5. Thumbscrew, Never Is Enough (Cuneiform)
6. Julian Lage, Squint (Blue Note)
7. William Parker, Mayan Space Station (AUM Fidelity)
8. East Axis [Matthew Shipp-Allen Lowe-Gerald Cleaver-Kevin Ray], Cool With That (ESP-Disk)
9. Benito Gonzalez, Sing to the World (Rainy Days)
10. Amir ElSaffar Rivers of Sound, The Other Shore (Outnote)

BEST ALBUMS OF 2021
MASTERPIECES
BROKEN SHADOWS
Broken Shadows
Intakt...

Albums of the Year: 3 Broken Shadows Broken Shadows Intakl

Albums of the Year: 8 Tim Berne/Chris Speed/Reid
Anderson/Dave King Broken Shadows
Intakt

ZEIT-Mitarbeiter empfehlen Musik und Musikbücher

Broken Shadows: Broken Shadows (intakt) Stücke von Ornette Coleman. Charlic Haden, Dewey Redman. Julius Hemphill im Heute gedcutct

Schon seinen ersten Plattenvertrag (bei Contemporary) eroberte sich Ornette Coleman allein durch seine Melodien - knappe, elementare, unregelmäßige

Motive, aber von enormer Über-zeugungskraft. Das US-Quartett Broken Shadows beruft sich auf diese große Stärke der engeren Freejazz-Tradition, die knackigen, prägnanten Themen. Neben acht Stücken von Ornette (aus Alben wie Science Fiction, Sound Grammar und Crisis) erklingen vier weitere Kompositionen von drei Geistesverwandten: Julius Hemphill, Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden. Die bissige Zwei-Sax-Front mit Tim Berne (as) und Chris Speed (ts) erinnert hier noch einmal an die Kraft des Coleman-Quartetts mit Redman. Das Rhythmus-Tandem von The Bad Plus, Reid Anderson (b) und Dave King (dr), komplettiert das Freejazz-Revival-Quartett. Keine Proben, kurze Soli - das war die Devise bei den Aufnahmen im Jahr 2018. Die durchschnittliche Stücklänge liegt unter vier Minuten. Out-Time, schneller Swing, rockender Beat und freie Ballade - hier ist alles drin. Authentische Freejazz-Ästhetik im kompakten Evergreen-Pro-gramm - unbezahlbar.

Chris Speed appears here on two recordings that are very different yet closely related, one by a highly interactive quartet recorded in 2018, the other insistently focused on a single instrumental voice, a pandemic recording from 2020. His own identities -as tenor saxophonist and clarinetist-are similarly distinct, but there is also a certain relationship of repertoire. The band Broken Shadows' eponymous CD is largely devoted to Ornette Coleman compositions while the solo Light Line has a single Coleman work as well as other pieces from the early avant jazz era.

Broken Shadows consists of Speed (on tenor), Tim Berne (alto) and The Bad Plus rhythm team of bassist Reid Anderson and drummer Dave King. They play eight Coleman themes, two by Julius Hemphill and one each by Charlie Haden and Dewey Redman. Associations in the project are strong, both with the material and among the musicians. Berne joined John Zorn on 1989's Spy vs. Spy to play harsh, rapidly sped-up versions of Coleman compositions with truncated solos while The Bad Plus recorded Coleman's "Street Woman" in 2003 and "Broken Shadows" in 2016, both revisited here.
King has played in Speed's trio and Speed recently joined a new quartet version of The Bad Plus.

While the treatments are relatively brief when compared to the original recordings, this isn't Spy vs.
Spy: the brevity comes via shorter solos and thematic emphasis rather than accelerated tempos. Berne and Speed create a definite ensemble identity; whether it is the expressive keening of "Street Woman" or the mad joy of "Toy Dance", they invest every line with its own urgency. Meanwhile, the spare, precise propulsion that characterizes Anderson and King's work contributes to the structural clarity. The result is a wonder of free jazz funk, especially so for the emphatic roots of Hemphill's
"Body" and "Dogon A.D.", but true of everything else as well. It's familiar ground to Berne, whose invention and intensity never falter while Speed's solos manage to be gruff, vague and specific at the same time, with every short phrase and multiphonic aside given its own detailed inflection, harsh or delicate, tonal and timbral elements combining into multi-dimensional events, in a kind of sonic cubism.

Speed's clarinet is an utterly different voice from his tenor saxophone. In place of the distorted, vocalic tenor, the clarinet timbre of Light Line approaches a kind of absolute purity. Speed's response to the lockdown was to practice clarinet intensively, with the goal of a solo record with (according to Anthony Burr's liner notes) "limited improvising, no extended techniques, no textures". There are inflections of voice, but each of the 15 pieces presents its own consistency, whether woody, plaintive or almost flute-like, a quality of voice that could be applied to an album of clarinet solos assembled from members of Les Six, say Milhaud and Poulenc and their predecessor Satie had such a notion occurred to them. Skúli Sverrisson's "Drifting" has a continuous flow accomplished with flawless circular breathing while Andrew D'Angelo's "Sphasos Triem" has a dancing woodland quality that Debussy could concoct to summon up Pan. "Miss Ann" is an improvisation barely suggesting its roots, eventually becoming Eric Dolphy's whimsically convoluted line.

There are 15 pieces here, including improvisations and Speed originals, an inspired and lyrical path occasionally marked along the way by familiar, or familiar sounding, events like Coleman's "Enfant" and John Coltrane's "Sun Ship", the arc through the music's memory and invention arriving ultimately at the reflective pool of Paul Motian's "It Should've Happened a Long Time Ago".

Broken Shadows è una composizione di Ornette Coleman apparsa in Crisis, album del sassofonista registrato dal vivo nel '69 e pubblicato nel '72, e poi registrato da Coleman in studio nel '71 ma pubblicato solo nell'82, nell'album intitolato proprio Broken Shadows. Nel 2017 il sax alto Tim Berne e il sax tenore Chris Speed hanno formato un quartetto con Reid Anderson e Dave King (il contrabbassista e il batterista del popolare trio Bad Plus), scegliendo di chiamarlo col titolo della composizione di Coleman. Broken Shadows, di cui la Intakt ha pubblicato quest'anno l'album omonimo, e che domenica 24 ottobre
Coleman, di Charlie Haden, il grande contrabbassista che
tanto è stato accanto a Coleman, e di Dewey Redman e di Julius Hemphill, sassofonisti (il primo ha figurato in importanti gruppi e incisioni di Coleman) entrambi come Coleman di Fort Worth, Texas. L'interessante scelta del quartetto è quella di non dilungarsi negli assoli, e di valorizzare le melodie dei brani. Prima di ascoltare Broken Shadows, ricordiamo anche Spy vs Spy, l'album di John Zorn e Tim Berne dell'89 dedicato al repertorio colemaniano.

Molti fili s'in- trecciano nel wartett al tunitense Bro- ken Shadows. Tra proteso nisti questanno di fazzMI, in una rete di relazioni umane e musicali che rappresentano buona parte della storia re- cente (e non solo) del 1077. del go po. La vicenda parte Sessanta. quando alcuni memhn cel tuturo gruppo non sono neppur nati. Broken Shadows, «ombre spezzate», dal sassofonista Ornette Cole-man, Il «padre del free jazz», da lui più volte inciso dal vivo: quella più celebre, la prima, in un disco del ton rimasto leggendario, «Crisis». Dunque il richiamo e a uno del protagonisti più discussi del jazz moderno, ma anche a e insieme disperata. E, anco- ra, al gruppo con cui Coleman mazione nella quale lo affian- cava altro sassolono di Dewey Redman, accompa- gnati dal contrabbasso di di Ed Blackwell. Ora, questa e appunto la stro quartetto. Al sax contral-Chris Speed, al contrabbasso Reid Anderson, alla batteria Dave King. E con loro abbia- то потіго стало расса gonisti della scena contempo ranca, coe come 1 memon del gruppo di Coleman lo erano tel jazz di cinquant'anni fa. 1 Diu anziano etim Peme. natol a Syracuse (stato di New York) nel 1954: il suo collega di stru- mento, proveniente da Scatt- le, e di tredici anni più giova ne, mentre i due ritmi sono 1970. Da giovane, Berne scelse il sassofono contrato proprio sull'esempio di Coleman, ma presto si appassiono ancor lo strumento, Julius Hem- phill, con cui studio a lungo. E anche Hemphill e al centro degli interessi dei quattro Broken Shadows, che hanno ni. Il bello è che Hemphill, un po' piu giovane di Coleman, era nato e cresciuto nella sua stessa città, la texana Fort Worth; e di Fort Worth era anche Il partner di Coleman, Dewey Redman, del quale pure il nostro quartetto presenta qualche composizione. Come si vede, c'e una so-vrapposizione di vicende umane, biografiche e profes- stonali, che da stretta cocten- za alla musica del gruppo. Mu non finisce qui. Negli anni 'go gruppo bloodcount Di Tim Berne; è un momento importante nella maturazione este- tica di quest'ultimo, che co- mincia a cabora re brani di d- mensioni spropositate, basati su trasformazioni Interne, quasi organismi viventi. Tutto il contrario di ciò che accade in Broken Shadows, dove la forza generativa dei temi di partenza e conservata fino alla Fine con intervent brevi essenziali, come delle chiose al pensiero del compositore. Speed, a sua volta, ha spes-so collaborato con Anderson e King Ma i due sono famosi imito der lad is e

Tim Berne likes to keep a lot of irons in the fire. Although Snakeoil relieved a long dry spell of the alto player not leading a working group, it was only a matter of time until his other interests started chafing for attention. While Berne, along with Marty Ehrlich, has carried the torch of his mentor Julius Hemphill for years, it's difficult for an alto player of this type of music not to be influenced by the fellow Fort Worth, Texas saxophonist, Ornette Coleman and his longtime tenor associate Dewey Redman. In fact Tim was one of three altoists playing Zorn's thunderous thrash rock versions of Coleman's music on Spy vs Spy on Tzadik in 1988. But Broken Shadows addresses a lot of empty spaces in the Berne oeuvre: playing cover versions, no rehearsals, no sheet music and short solos. Tenor player Chris Speed was in the mid 90's Bloodcount and very familiar with Berne's way of doing things (plus he often employs a big open Dewey Redman tone). The Bad Plus rhythm section, bassist Reid Anderson and drummer Dave King, have played together for 35 years so are obviously simpatico. So book some gigs in Brooklyn restaurants when schedules permit and see what happens.
What happened was obviously a success as they raced through the persistently appealing melodies and created instantly well crafted solos. Coleman's songs have an almost immediate familiarity but a surprise on this recording is how well Hemphill's "Body" fits in (a new version of "Dogon A.D." is always welcome particularly with different instrumentation). If nothing else the Coleman songs remind the listener of the consistency of the quality of songwriting that seemed almost effortless. The songs were originally released as part of a vinyl subscription package by Newvelle Records in 2019. Thanks to Intakt for making it more widely and conveniently available.

EINE REVITALISIERUNG HAT DAS Frühwerk von Ornette Coleman, das auch nach sechzig Jahren immer noch verstörend und frisch klingt, vielleicht gar nicht nötig, aber eine Aktualisierung kann nicht schaden. Vor allem, wenn dabei zwei profilierte Avantgarde-Bläser wie Tim Berne und Chris Speed ans Werk gehen und mit Reid Anderson und Dave King am Bass und Schlagzeug von einer Rhythmusgruppe unterstutzt wer-den, die Anfang des Jahrtausends im Pianotrio The Bad Plus Furore machte. Das Ergebnis ist ein zupackendes Standards-Album der anderen Art, allürefrei und ohne Umwege. Die mal bekann-teren, mal unbekannteren Kompositionen werden schnörkellos abgeliefert. Klare Kante: direkt und unmissverständlich. Sogar für lyrische Momente, etwa Charlie Hadens »Song for Che«, ist inmitten der rockigen Rauigkeiten Raum. Insofern kann man Branford Marsalis - einen Freund von Berne und Fan des Quartetts - verstehen, der in den Liner Notes betont, dass bei dieser Band die Songs im Mittelpunkt stehen. Ein Gespräch per Zoom mit Tim Berne, der in New York City sitzt.

Diese Band unterscheidet sich stark von den vielen anderen Projekten, mit denen du am Start bist - etwa von deiner langlebigen Band Snakeoil. Es ist nicht meine Band, es ist eine Kooperative. Chris Speed und ich wollten einfach mal wieder zusammen spielen, weil wir dazu in den letzten Jahren wenig Gelegenheit hatten. Und wir dachten gleich an Dave und Reid, die wir beide sehr mögen. Wir hatten einen kleinen Auftritt in New York und entschieden uns, die Musik von Julius und die Musik von Ornette zu spielen. Es machte allen großen Spaß und wir sagten uns: »Machen wir weiter damit.« Und so spielten wir ein paar Gigs in New York, dann kamen einige Tourneen - meistens in Amerika - und im letzten Jahr tourten wir durch Europa. Vor ein paar Jahren nahmen wir eine Platte für Newvelle auf - und jetzt kommt die neue auf Intakt heraus. Wir wollten einfach neben unseren eigenen Projekten zusammen etwas anderes machen und dachten gleich an Komponis-ten, die wir alle mögen: Julius war mein Lehrer, wir lieben Ornette, dazu spielten wir ein Stück von Dewey Redman und eine Charlie Haden-Nummer. Es fühlte sich cool an, ganz ohne Druck einfach Musik machen zu können. Und wir entschieden uns, keine Originalkompositionen zu spielen. Ist es ein Prinzip dieser Band, ohne Proben zu spielen? Wir machten keine Proben, weil wir zu weit entfernt voneinander wohnen. Jeder von uns kennt die Musik und lernte die Stücke auswendig. Es ist nicht die Art von Musik, die poliert klingen soll. Wir kamen zusammen und spielten die Melodien, mehr braucht es gar nicht. Es gab kein großartiges Konzept dahinter. Ist dieses sehr persönliche Songbook auch eine Reise in die eigene Vergangenheit? Julius Hemphills Stück »Dogon A.D.« inspirierte mich in meinen Anfängen dazu, Musik zu machen. Ich habe diese Musik intensiv gehört, aber ich habe früher nie versucht, in dieser Art zu spielen. Ich habe früher mal Ornette-Stücke mit John Zorn gemacht. Sonst spiele ich fast ausschließlich meine eigenen Kompositionen. Sich jetzt mit den Stücken von anderen zu beschäftigen, ist neu für mich. Es gibt mir die Gelegenheit, mich mehr auf das Spielen zu konzentrieren. Das ist fast wie Urlaub.

Ist es eine bewusste Entscheidung, die Soli kurz zu halten und die Kompositionen möglichst pur zu spielen? Wir haben kein Konzept, spielen einfach die Songs, öffnen das Ding und improvisieren den Rest. Bei unseren Auftritten sind die improvisierten Teile zwar länger als auf der CD, aber sie sind nicht superlang. Wir versuchen immer auf den Punkt zu kommen, das ist alles. Ich betrachte die Stücke wie Songs. Die müssen nicht in epischer Breite erzählt werden. Das ist eher eine kollektive Entscheidung aus dem Moment heraus - niemand gibt den Hinweis, wann Ende ist, keiner ist Chef. Und wir reden auch vorher nicht darüber, wie lang die Stücke sein sollen. Wir versuchen nicht, etwas Neues zu erfinden, es passiert ganz organisch. Die Stücke stehen im Vordergrund, weil es schöne Melodien sind. Darum möchte man sie ja

spielen: weil sie einen zum Improvisieren anregen. So ist es ja auch mit unseren eigenen Kompositionen. Wir brauchen sie, damit etwas geschehen kann, was nicht passieren würden, wenn wir einfach nur frei improvisierten. Wenn du die Musik auswendig lernst, wenn du dir die Stücke wirklich zueigen machst, dann wird das die Art, wie du spielst, verändern.

Sind dir die melodischen Aspekte deiner eigenen Kompositionen besonders wichtig? Meine Stücke sehe ich einfach als Musik - mit all ihren Aspekten: Melodien, Harmonien, Rhythmen. Manche sind einfach, manche kompliziert. Manche sind kompliziert, weil sie so einfach sind. Und die Musik von Dewey ist anders als die von Ornette. Für mich geht es bei der Idee, Songs, Tunes oder Kompositionen zu spielen, darum, etwas Persönliches zu erschaffen. Wenn du einfach nur improvisierst, ist es anders. Dann reagiert man auf nichts, sondern hört nur zu, öffnet Raume - aber wenn man Kompositionen einbri...

These two reeds-two rhythm sessions succinctly point out how improvised music is 1constanly evoving Aibuion y four Swis based plyers one kiac 1 6 immersed in uncompromising 21st Century Free Music that its reference points are almost exclusively within that genre. In the same way the American Broken Shadows quartet's interpretations of 12 compositions by Ornette Coleman and his associates become traditional Jazz with its vocabulary informed by Blues, rhythm and organized melodies. In comparison it shows how Coleman's seemingly incoherent experimentation of the early 1960s have now become mainstream.

To be honest the two most affecting Broken Shadows tunes were composed by Julius Hemphill, like Coleman, a Fort Worth native, best-known for his work with the World Saxophone Quartet. Taking full advantage of the Texas lope on "Body", bassist Reid Anderson energetically pulses while drummer Dave King splashes drum cracks. Joining those members of The Bad Plus, alto saxophonist Tim Berne and tenor saxophone); Chris Speed, who have played together for almost 30 years, interpolates textures by harmonizing soul and split tones. The R&B-like riffs are more obviously intense on "Dogon A.D." The saxophonists energetically squeeze emotion out of every vamp, exchanging tones like a country Blues duo while bass string extruding and bass drum ruffs vibrate beneath them. Breaking apart the time the head is repeated several times.

That structure is obvious too on the eight Coleman compositions that take up most of the disc. Upsettingly revolutionary they appeared when played either by the first quartet or later electric band, in retrospect, their relationship to tradition is obvious. There are touch of Latin on "Una Muy Bonita", emphasized by Speed's snarling variations and a yearning melancholy on the title track, but overall the music is as bouncy and bright as that produced by a marching band. Intersecting reed cries on "Broken Shadows" confirm the undertone of sadness, but adagio bass pumps keeps the performance flowing forward. Other than that sunniness is expressed on nearly every one to a greater or lesser degree. Tunes such as "Street Woman" or "Toy Dance" for instance steadily roll horizontally as they judder up and down, propelled by tolling drum strokes and reed split tones piled on top of one another. A walking bass line is usually emphasized, as is connective Blues-like phraseology. Phrasing in introductions frequently reappears as saxophone slurs and stutters end with a responsive connection.

Any nods to conventionality on Altbüron occur when Israeli-born alto saxophonist and flutist Omri Ziegele interrupts the group tone exploration to intone in English some pseudo-Beat phraseology. Other than that he spends his time creating emphasized squawks, squeals and peeps that epitomize Energy Music. Logical on their own when he engages in broken octave unison challenges with soprano saxophonist Urs Leimgruber, his sound japes confirms the other's versatility. The slightly older Leimgruber, who here pushes out sprawling multiphonics and energetically repeated slides and screeches usually plays in more refined circumstances in a trio with Barre Phillips and Jacques Demierre. Younger, drummer Alex Huber and bassist Christian Weber have worked with multiple European improvisers.

Beginning with thin echoing reed puffs and squalls balancing on swift slides down the bass line by Weber, the winnowing peeps are soon inflated with broken octave shrills as Ziegele begins his Alan Ginsberg-meets-Flower-Power recitations. As the intense reed tonguing climb upwards to flutters and shrills, freedom is confirmed by Huber's hard smacks and rolls and bass-string stropping. Continuing to contrast cavernous blowing from the alto saxophone with high peeps from the soprano, unaccompanied solo sequences from all four are heard. Never overdone, with even the drummer confining himself to cymbal brushing and drum rumbles and the bassist pointillist-like ratcheting, the penultimate sequence slides down to adagio as the reeds showcase duck calls and time-signal-like beeps. Following an unexpected explosion of nasal reed multiphonics, reed sucking and intermittent cymbal slaps the narrative gradually fades.

While the chief point of congruence between The Workers and Broken Shadows is instrumentation, both have created equally valid approaches to playing evolved music. Ironically comparing the two one set seems more traditional than the other. This confirms the irony that yesterday's shocking revolution soon becomes today's expected evolution.

Probablement l'un des grands musiciens de notre époque, Tim Berne retrouve un vieux camarade de jeu qui ne lui cède en rien, le saxophoniste-ténor Chris Speed. En compagnie du contrebassiste Reid Anderson et du broken batteur Dave King (les deux-tiers de Bad Plus), ils ont monté le quartette Broken Shadows consacré aux compositions d'Ornette Coleman (huit thèmes) et de ses proches Dewey Redman et Charlie Haden (une chacun), en y associant Julius Hemphill (deux compos). Soit douze pièces de format court, ramassé, dans lesquelles les musiciens vont à l'essentiel, en particulier les deux saxes qui se renvoient constamment la balle. Douze thèmes qui nous rappellent une fois de plus que Coleman était un grand mélodiste - Brandford Marsalis insiste sur cet aspect dans ses liner notes. Une véritable recréation d'un fameux quartette et un disque épatant. « Broken Shadows » (CD 362).