| Jon Ballantyne lays out when the others solo: he's at the post, enjoying the music and its live unfolding. When it's his turn to solo, he plays simply and sparingly: harmonic cells are jabbed into the flow here — and there, as Ballantyne cooperates with and listens to the current of music. His soloing and his compositions are the poised and space-filled design of his mind.
Boris Koslov is such a beautiful warm-toned bass player. His fingers move as a totally flexible system. You can see he's solidly trained. Whether inter-communicating, or delivering one of his complex yet clear and lyrical solos, Koslov never failed to delight. He's a 'post-Scotty LaFaro' bass player — meaning, he can play like a horn player and still keep time and play all the important notes.
This music was not fusion, nor world music with jazz, nor electronically-driven, nor mixed with hip-hop and dance beats. It was extremely satisfying acoustic jazz — creative acoustic jazz.
But a short sample from the set list might help you better zone in on what the music 'sounded like.'
— "Lennie's Pennies", by the late pianist Lennie Tristano. Tristano's challenging compositions (and his playing) are contemporaneous with Bird. Tristano is seen by some as one of the fathers of the avant-garde. He looked into different time tempos and different scales.
— "Home" (based on "You'd be So Nice To Come Home To") was a medium tempo pleasure. We heard suggestions of the original melody, but this group was not merely quoting, they were extending re-composition and then playing on that.
— "Scotch Neat" by Ballantyne, is a stop-and-start kind of tune, with recurring motifs and quiet rhythmic figures ('tick-tock-tick-tock') which become sparse background for the emerging solos.
— "Anne's Dream", also by Ballantyne, is based on a slow arpeggio of 5 notes, recurring like a recurring dream. Think the ballads of Carla Bley.
The group did 'swing' — a swing which approached the status of what Duke referred to as 'dynaflow' (Hirshfield was certainly responsible for a lot of this dynaflow. ) But it wasn't all toe-tapping swing. This was total body/mind wholistic swing.
On this evening, I felt so good and happy. My ears were cleaned out, and I was back to the first days when I heard jazz and really loved it.
That's what the "jon ballantyne 4tet" did for me.
They simply played their music.
( ... And yes, I did buy Jon Ballantyne's CD, "jon ballantyne 4tets + dewey redman"
[r.a.w. Real Artists Works 1001])
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