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All About Jazz New York
thirty9thirty8 and Live at the Clown Lounge
Published: August 4, 2007
By Elliot Simon
Although legitimate releases, both these sessions, on guitarist Terrence McManus’ own Flattened Planet Records, have the look, feel, intimacy and immediacy of the best bootlegs. The cleverly constructed Thirty9Thirty8 is an encounter with inventive trumpeter Dave Ballou while Live at the Clown Lounge inserts McManus into the Fat Kid Wednesdays trio to create a power quartet.
McManus is a product of the free-formish improvisational jazz scene and he is able to run with the best of that pack including a current stint with bassist Kermit Driscoll’s trio. His fluid style, which can range from delicate to killer fuzz, is tailor-made for both these sessions. Recorded at a club in Ballou’s Baltimore backyard, Thirty9Thirty8 rests on the premise that the only constraint on these musicians is the time of each cut. Their ideas are largely realized with three engaging improvs titled to reflect their times that, along with McManus’ delightfully varied playing, showcase Ballou’s mastery of his horn. Ballou shines on a number of fronts but most notably tone and inventive lines that include some exquisite minor modal playing on the opening track. Drummer Devin Gray acts as a conduit between Ballou and McManus allowing ample room for the guitarist’s breadth. This is clearly the lighter of the two sessions despite doses of electric guitar sound sheeting to kick things off.
While St. Paul, Minn. may seem like an unlikely venue for this sort of thing, its Clown Lounge has played host to some of the country’s best creative music for some time. Once again, McManus engages the homeboys in selecting the entire trio Fat Kid Wednesdays, a house band of sorts at the Clown Lounge, to round out this quartet. Saxophonist Michael Lewis is wonderfully lyrical and matches McManus’ subtlety on a very memorable reworking of the standard “The Days of Wine and Roses” as well as engaging in a smorgasbord of in-tandem in-your-face sax/guitar creativity. The rhythm section of bassist Adam Linz and drummer JT Bates has an exceedingly palpable depth that adds a rich coloration to these tunes that cut across a broad range of forms and formats. McManus is always there with just the right sound whether dropping back to create intriguing chordal surroundings, sharpen the shearingly spiky “Mom Got a New Davenport” or play counterpoint to the deliciously funky rhythm cooked up for “Creepy”. These two gigs, outside comfortable NYC environs, present McManus in diverse and motivating company.
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All About Jazz New York
Bates/Linz/McManus & Pastellic Reflections
Published: December 3, 2006
By Matthew Miller
One of the joys of completely improvised music is the urgency and utter possibility lurking in each phrase. These provocative new releases, the first two on guitarist Terrence McManus’ Flattened Planet label, restlessly push the improvisational envelope, daringly risking everything in the pursuit of fresh sonic vistas and heightened states of group cohesion.
Bates/Linz/McManus, a trio effort joining drummer J.T Bates, bassist Adam Linz and McManus, begins with a persistent bass motif that Linz doggedly sticks to as Bates enters with off-kilter drum beats and McManus strums dissonant extrapolations. Unified by a common melodic theme, the players nonetheless maintain three distinctly different approaches, occasionally coming together in brief harmony before restlessly setting off on disparate paths.
A collection of trios, duets and solos, the album is a mixture of unique improvisations, ranging from the stuttering trio groove of “x(fin)” to the desolate, distorted soundscape that is “Cataclysm”. McManus’ skills as a guitarist and knack for experimentation are apparent throughout, most strikingly on “Arepticious”, a piece that features his distorted guitar amid patched electronic samples and the kind of stuttering interference that results from holding a cell phone up to an amplifier.
This kind of freewheeling, minimalist improvisational style is a potent mix of jazz, classical and rock. Drawing equally from Jimi Hendrix, Steve Reich and Derek Bailey, McManus and company seem hell-bent on not only creating a unique group sound, but also redefining the role and accepted notions of their respective instruments.
A decidedly different, yet no less experimental, album is Pastellic Reflections. The improvised duo features McManus with fellow guitarist Joe Battaglia, performing acoustic pieces that show the striking sonic capabilities of two unplugged instruments.
Metallic punctuations and harmonic bell tones ring out on the title track, after a series of atonal chords break the silence over the grating scratch of a pick against wound, metallic strings. The two guitars, at times indistinguishable, blend sonorously before becoming distinct. Battaglia’s steel-stringed acoustic, the more jarring of the pair, producing slapped, metallic rhythms against McManus’ softer, Spanish-tinged nylon strings. “White Blood Cells”, a 5+ minute tour-de-force that features the duo at its most cohesive, begins with muffled notes and chords from McManus’ guitar before Battaglia joins, adding jarring dissonances, contrapuntal lines and open strummed chords. The episodic piece builds to a peak before contracting to muted rumblings and quietly rambling 8th note lines, only to build again. Both guitarists explore different effects, tapping percussively on the guitar’s body to contrast a complex accompanying line or pounding the strings to produce resounding walls of sound from chords with no distinguishable tonal center. “Industrial Evolution” mimics intricate, mechanized workings with rapidly picked, staccato passages and finds the duo creating tension by playing at opposite ends of their shared range. The two men solo with conviction and freedom, creating music as rewarding as it is challenging.
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Bates/Linz/McManus
-reviewed by Modisti (Spain)
October 4, 2006
A carefully thought post-free approach to jazz trio playing from a deconstructive perspective questioning instrument role, density, pulse, harmony and melody and proposing, in the ensuing void, an unprejudiced interaction expanding across genders.
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McManus / Battaglia
Pastellic Reflections
-reviewed by Modisti (Spain)
October 21, 2006
Acoustic guitar duo where reflections on various musical concerns find expression in an extended idiomatic realm. Noise elements contribute to enrich a sound palette whenever the issue calls for it, while the ‘lack’ of perspective chosen –static camera, one shot- results in a stark realism that seems to hint at an underlying attitude.
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Pastellic Reflections
-reviewed by Kevin Bligh
Mar 15 '06-
In order to be considered a dynamic instrumental guitarist, you need to be willing to take your music to the next level; a level that many attempt to attain, yet fall short time and time again. With an impressive educational background beginning at the Greater Hartford Academy of Performing Arts and then college studies taking him to William Paterson University, Terrence McManus has learned what it takes to step your musical playing up and become a fine instrumental guitarist. In an era that is dominated more by vocals, a la American Idol, it is refreshing to listen to an album that lyrically can invoke appreciation not by vocals, but by simply the sounds of guitar.
In his debut album, Pastellic Reflections, McManus along with fellow guitarist Joe Battaglia have created an album that is both musically impressive and well worthy of a listen. A soft guitar sound is found throughout the album and each track creates a different emotional response and musical appreciation for the work of McManus and Battaglia.
The album starts off with the lead track, Dream Chain. This track starts off with a very soft and subtle sound of the guitar bringing you into what will follow on the other tracks of the album. The track focuses on smooth and creative variations of sounds that lend themselves nicely to the track. About midway through the track, a bit more up-tempo sound is heard along with a few dissonant sounds that grab your attention and reel you back in.
White Blood Cells is probably the best track on the album. A quicker and more polished sound is heard on this track, and the song's range is simply amazing. At one moment, you can hear a slow and methodic walking beat to the music and without a moment's notice you are then in the middle of a quicker and stronger tone that changes the track entirely. This is probably the most interesting mix of sounds heard on this track, and this track stands apart from some of the others on this album. A truly captivating track for sure.
Industrial Evolution is a very different track, but is quite interesting nonetheless. When you first hear the music, you are automatically going to think that you need to hear it again. Sounds from the guitar almost invoke a factory feel at times: you can hear tapping, banging, maybe even the sounds of some machines at work. Though the track perhaps might invoke the imagery of the Industrial Revolution, McManus has perfected an instrumental track on Industrial Evolution that tells a story without any words being needed. The evolution that takes place on this track shows that this album will turn McManus from simply just another instrumental guitarist into one of the better ones around.
Pastellic Reflections is an amazingly strong instrumental album that McManus is sure to gain much respect for. With quality instrumental sounds created throughout the entire album, McManus is sure to gain many listeners that both would find this music naturally appealing, but more importantly, will draw many new listeners to the instrumental genre.
-Kevin Bligh, independant reviewer, Bridgewater, MA
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jazzreview.com
Spring 2006
By Brenton Plourde
"...we will be changed of heart, especially for the two-guitar format..."
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