So, you've achieved success as an artist or musician. Well, there are two paths you can take from here. You can analyze that which made you successful, break it down to its barest parts, and see what makes it tick. But be careful; often, all this overanalysis yields is the painful knowledge that what made your music work was the spontaneity and unbridled creativity that all your careful nitpicking and study would render obsolete. Your other option is the road with the rusty old sign plunked in the ground labeled "HARD WORK." That's right: just because you've made it doesn't mean you can take it easy. If anything, you'll have to work even harder, because everything you'll do from this point on will be held up against that last amazing thing you did. Yup, it turns out you're your own worst competition. And worse yet, working hard doesn't even guarantee continued triumph.
Take Rob Mazurek and Chad Taylor, for instance. In the mid-90s, these two started a weekly improv gathering at Chicago's infamous Green Mill jazz club, which led to various recorded incarnations as the Chicago Underground Duo, Trio, Quartet, and Orchestra. It's hard to pin down the moment when the Chicago Underground first achieved success. All of its members are all consummate performers, liable to amaze audiences whether they're playing in a hole-in-the-wall jazz venue, a college auditorium, or an oversized rock club. Every album released under the Chicago Underground banner has been undeniably solid as well. So, in a sense, they've been successful all along. But in my mind, the turning point came with 1999's Synesthesia. At times free jazz, and at others as carefully structured as a good book, Synesthesia was a revelation on first listen and it remains absolutely stunning to this day.
Last year's Chicago Underground Quartet album saw Mazurek and Taylor supplementing their usual fervent free-jazz explorations with the dignified calm of 1950s bebop-style jazz. Now, the continually evolving duo heads for untraveled territory once more. Mazurek still plays cornet on Axis and Alignment, and Taylor still plays drums and vibraphones, but here they take new chances with different instruments and sounds, with mixed results.
"Average Assumptions and Misunderstandings" finds cornetist Mazurek plunking away at a piano. First, he interjects quick and staccato, stabbing at the peaceful backdrop created by Taylor's vibraphones. But as he picks deeper notes and the piano begins to resonate, Taylor switches places with him, striking faster and faster at the piano's all-encompassing rumble. "Memoirs of a Space Traveler" opens by following the now-familiar Chicago Underground formula for free improvisation-- driving cornet skronks, rapid-fire drums, and a static electronic drones all fight for attention-- only everything collapses halfway through. Mazurek lingers on a note, Taylor strums an acoustic guitar, and a laptop fixates on the synthesized sound of glass breaking. Predictably, neither musician is anywhere near as talented with these new toys as they are with their usual instruments, but the new sounds are a refreshing change of pace after three albums of little more than cornet, vibes and drums.
Most notable on Axis and Alignment are the electronics. While the Duo's previous two albums made use of found/manipulated sound and occasional Powerbook flourishes, this release sees them stepping into the forefront. Their role is still mostly minimal, but one can sense a certain confidence. No doubt, Mazurek's work on Orton Socket, his superb solo laptop project released last year on Jim O'Rourke's Moikai label, has made him more comfortable in front of a monitor.
In many cases, like the short, introspective number "Lem," the electronic elements are so minimal and atmospheric that they may easily go unnoticed. But later, on "Noon," Mazurek plays with this subtlety, allowing the minimal rumbling in the background to all but conquer the other elements of the song by the time the song ends. The electronics take on a much more structured form on "Exponent Red" and "Two Concepts for the Storage of Light," both built around synthesized basslines that seem lifted directly off Isotope 217's Who Stole the I-Walkman?.
"Exponent" serves as a necessary reprieve from some of the less structured numbers. "Two Concepts," however, is a long track that starts off structured, gets crazy, then calms again over the course of eight or nine minutes. Though a fine piece of music on its own, it seems little more than a failed attempt to replicate the greatness of "Blue Sparks Form Her, and the Scent of Lightning," the stunning opening track from Synesthesia. Where that song took listeners on a literary-style journey, complete with foreshadowing and false climaxes, "Two Concepts" seems a bit more content just to stay in one place.
For all its great moments, extra flourishes and new explorations, Axis and Alignment never quite matches the gripping nature or the emotional resonance of its predecessor. But Mazurek and Taylor should be commended for branching out, for insisting on trying something new when churning out a replica of past successes might well have seemed easier. It's a tough decision for any artist to make. But then, no one ever said success would be easy.
