The broad church of jazz has always proved a home of sorts to even the most vocal of musical dissidents. One of the earliest and most famous controversialists was Ornette Coleman, who was branded a virtual heretic for his dissonant free jazz explorations. Powerhouse bassist and composer Charles Mingus was a fearsome, angry polemicist, while the Afrofuturist composer and musician Sun Ra bewildered and bedazzled audiences and critics alike.
The relentlessly individual guitarist Wayne Krantz has long been one of the great contemporary musical non-conformists, having refused to step into a studio for more than
15 years and instead releasing his live shows from New York’s 55 Bar through his own website as well as maintaining a distinctly anti-music industry approach.
Evolution has finally meant a return to the studio for the former Steely Dan and Billy Cobham sideman for the recording of Krantz Carlock Lefebvre on the cutting edge Abstract Logix label.
Krantz’s reputation as a fearless, tightrope-walking improviser was not lost on the Ronnie Scott’s audience during the fluid, swampy meanderings of the opening number. This found the guitarist and his long-term collaborator, bassist Tim Lefebvre, locked into an expansive grunge groove underpinned by the simmering strokes of ex-Chick Corea drummer Gary Novak.
The liquid retro-rock riff of “Wine is the Thread” and the leader’s sparse mellifluous vocals gave way to a clattering cataclysm of jagged, staccato rumblings which saw Lefebvre simultaneously act as rhythmic pillar, melodic lead and counter-melodic foil alongside Novak’s thunderously agile
poly-rhythms. The multilayered extemporisations agitated boundlessly through sheets of sound and disjointed ring-modulated melodies and from dissonant, vamps to lush open string chordal undercurrents.
There was barely a moment for breath as the irrepressible trio left the crowd gasping amid the surging, blustering distortion of “Holy Joe” and the crystalline funk pop of “The Earth from Above”. This was a stunning, raw set of genuinely profound, instantaneous music.
