Bertrand Denzler Cluster: Y? ( Leo Lab : CD053 )

Bertrand Denzler (tenor sax), Benoit Delbecq (piano and prepared piano), Helene Labarriere (bass), Norbert Pfammatter (drums and percussion)

It's good, old-fashioned, American-style free jazz, this, or it would be if Delbecq didn't refuse to make things quite so easy. His playing is slightly reminiscent of Paul Bley's, using go-anywhere suspensions which are open enough to give freedom of movement to Denzler's tenor, creating a slow-moving thread through the wildest portions of the set. That means the group can often stop dead and, using him as a pivot, as it were, launch off in a completely different direction. His drone-based solo on the otherwise furious "Now" is worthy of special note; pure, light-fingered loveliness in an unexpected place.

Labarriere's bass owes a lot to William Parker, easily integrating a range of extended sounds with the atonal walk so typical of the music of the late '60s. Meanwhile, Pfammatter's muscular drumming keeps the music buoyed up on a crisp ride cymbal and pushes it along with exaggerated press rolls; both players take barnstorming solos. Denzler himself pitches in with an updated version of Archie Shepp's blustering style; his technique is pretty straight in free improv terms, but he has a lot to say in his solos and he's able to sustain a level of compressed energy extremely convincingly.

Perhaps unusually in this kind of music, Denzler's compositions are actually rather good; it can be so easy, after all, to wind up with a series of ham-fisted blowing vehicles or contrived stop-start novelties. Instead, Denzler seems able to contribute tunes which are worth performing rather than formalities which politeness dictates must be got out of the way before the real playing gets started. In the slow number here, for example, the join between the head and the solo is made invisible by Denzler's completely assured ballad playing.

This group neatly updates the old New Thing with some added European finesse. If it's not quite so hyperactive as some of the manifestations of free jazz which are around these days, it's by no means tame and it makes up for it by executing these quirks with vigorous commitment. Take Delbecq's prepared piano on the title track -- it proves not only he understands piano preparation (a rare enough thing in itself) but also that he can make it work with Denzler's Coltraneish melody.

Richard Cochrane