Too often when electronica mates with jazz, one side gets the upper hand. Either the producer trips, chops, or buries the musicians and masks the flow of their improvisation, or he stands back, letting the musicians run blithely past the light colors or static backdrops set behind them. The Thirsty Ear Blue Series has repeatedly tried to put both sides on equal footing-- or at least to start a wrestling match-- like on last year's sadly dull Antipop Consortium vs. Matthew Shipp. But even when the music works, you can still see the separation: The two camps mix, but don't synthesize.
Then there's Craig Taborn, who approached his latest album as a performer and as the producer. It's hard to believe this is only Taborn's third record as a leader, and his first with electronics. When you flip through his work as a sideman and keyboardist-around-town in New York City, the breadth is overwhelming. With James Carter and on his own Light Made Lighter, Taborn is a methodically swift pianist who can solo like Scott Joplin's piano player plugged into the wrong voltage. He's also acclaimed as a leading Fender Rhodes revivalist, blowing the cobwebs off fusion licks for Tim Berne or Dave Douglas.
But Taborn is most distinctive as a textural player. He's said he follows the example of Sun Ra or Larry Young, pushing his keyboards to see what they can do for him; but Taborn uses the latest technology. If the hypnotic see-sawing of "The Golden Age"'s melody recalls the theme to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, that's just one touchstone for his digital space jazz, which also co-opts Detroit techno and dance beats. But he also constructs immersive spaces, opening up rough-hewn synth backdrops or triggering a deep sonar "ping" that creates the illusion of light-eating depths.
Each track on Junk Magic is crammed to the gills, and then made light by the restlessness and motion that drive the album. Taborn may have spent weeks constructing a machine but he gets to flick the switch right in front of us, and the product unfurls in real-time, even as you acknowledge the overdubbing. This starts right on the opening track, where IDM chirps fly like tacks over the synth lines that pile on top of the piano figure and thick organ chords at the low-end-- wheels spinning within wheels.
Taborn works with a group here, although he easily outnumbers them. Of his three sidemen, The Bad Plus' "dude, holy shit, you've gotta check this guy out" drummer David King is the chief commercial draw. He gives up some freedom when he joins Taborn's cyborg army, but it's worth it to hear the way Taborn bats him around-- as on "Mystero", where he's cut up like a stop-motion photograph. Aaron Stewart joins what you could call the frontline on tenor sax, but microtonal violist Mat Maneri adds the most color, sawing seared lines and rasping soliloquies over Taborn's precision. The musicians submit to cameos on some tracks and get full-contact jams on "Prismatica" and "Mystero", and "Bodies at Rest and in Motion" even starts as a stumbling acoustic piece-- though you know it's only a matter of minutes before the digital insects fly back in.
Impeccable taste keeps this project on track. Taborn sticks to one palette but never uses it the same way twice: Each piece is distinct, even the busiest tracks have a hook or clear melody to hang onto, and best of all, the record is concise, clocking in at just over 40 minutes, which leaves no time for screw-ups. It could've been stiff, crass, or even grotesque; instead, it's a definitive recital, and it throws down a challenge for the rest of the Blue Series. We've spent several records hearing Matthew Shipp flirt with electronica or gently funkify his piano, and the whole time Shipp had the spotlight, Taborn was already on the other side of the moon. Here's hoping people finally notice.
