Pursuance: In hot pursuit of the jazz ideal
(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Aug. 12, 1999) -- They don't make jazz groups like they used to. These days it's all about leaders, frontmen, soloists - musicians who look good in suits and make it easy for the guys over in marketing to sell records. This of course flies in the face of jazz tradition, which celebrates the democratic cooperation of the ensemble. Credit Boston-based band Pursuance, led by composer/guitarist Ron Bosse, for going in the opposite direction on its new CD, "Emotion and Intellect" (Thinking Man), which showcases ensemble playing at its best. It helps when you surround yourself with a group of musicians as full of ideas --and with the ability to carry them off -- as Bosse has with Pursuance (www.pursuancejazz.com), a quintet that includes Boston Symphony percussionist Will Hudgins, and which performs on Thursday night, Aug. 19, at 8:30 at Barkley's Pub, 36 Housatonic St., in Lenox (637-4940). In addition to Bosse and Hudgins - a part-time resident of Stockbridge -- the group includes tenor saxophonist Dave Barraza, drummer Rob Egan, and bassist Paul Beaudry. While Pursuance is Bosse's group - he writes the bulk of the group's material and presumably calls the shots - this isn't a case of a showoff guitarist with backup musicians. In fact, few of the tunes on "Emotion and Intellect" showcase Bosse's guitar work to any greater degree than any of the other soloists. Rather, Bosse's vision comes to fruition in the unique group dynamic and instrumentation - the saxophone/guitar/vibes frontline, and the group's particular aesthetic. Pursuance is often called a "contemporary jazz" group, but that term is often used disparagingly for commercial, easy-listening efforts, of which this is definitely not one. The musicians in Pursuance -- which in the past year has played the Boston Globe Jazz Festival, the Regattabar, and other jazz clubs throughout the Northeast -- make challenging, bold music that is both meaty and accessible. The title track, for example, begins with some ominous interplay between the bass and guitar - sort of Deep Purple meets the Doors, with otherworldly percussion underneath, four minutes worth, before the tenor saxophones join in (tenor man Gary Thomas guests on this and one other number) and the song takes off on a cool strut that even the most ardent acid-jazzer will groove to. Hudgins's solo on a frenetic reworking of Miles Davis's "So What" - the only cover on the album, full of sprinting shifts of tempo - is like nothing you've ever heard the vibes do before, with melodic runs and sheets of sound patterned more along the lines of a horn solo than a piano. A member of the BSO since 1990 who and teaches at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Hudgins also constructs a remarkably witty, impossibly athletic dialogue with saxophonist Barraza on the album's closer, "Flail Watch." The group - which heads out this fall for a tour of the Midwest and Canada -- also powers its way through "Watch It," a muscular bit of post-bop, followed by the leisurely Southern strut of "Dealing With Swing," which says as much with the eloquent spaces between the notes as it does with the suggestive, twin saxophone-vibe lines. Barraza's solo on this number is so languorous it's almost obscene - you wonder when the stripper is going to make her appearance. Bosse gives himself some room to breathe on "Stella Luna," again using his axe as an atmospheric paintbrush as much as a linear melody instrument. It's a delicate, wispy lullaby-like piece, presumably inspired by the children's picture book about a baby bat that has lost its family - at least it sounds like it in all its playful balladry, and on this piece Hudgins uses his vibes as a blanket under which Bosse gives his young fruit bat wings with which to fly. Pursuance's first album was called "Next Level," but it is the group's new recording that pushes it into a whole other sphere. Radio Beat It's been over a month since we tallied which CDs - new, recent, and old - have been getting the most airplay on our imaginary radio station.
[This column originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on Aug. 19, 1999. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1999. All rights reserved.]
Seth Rogovoy rogovoy@berkshire.net music news, interviews, reviews, et al.
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