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Jive at 5:05

Overview

Jive at 5:05 --- 2009

Album Notes “….. IMPROVISED CONTEMPORARY ART MUSIC MEETS FREE FORM JAZZ.” Like a cold slap upside the head, improvised contemporary art music meets free form jazz. After years of faux interaction between art music and jazz, the reality has been achieved. Not the reality of a new hybrid genre but rather a new expression of improvised music through the interaction of two long established genres. Indeed, each piece in this program suggests a different solution to the problem of meaningful expression through improvised music. The central issue on this CD seems to be whether or not to keep time. “Jive At 5:05,” “Blue Lou” and “Rhythmic Interplay” are definitely keeping time, but are they what they appear to be or is there some ulterior purpose lurking in the background? Is Schumacher playing with us again? That leaves the remaining pieces which are not involved with time keeping. They run the gamut from the very atmospheric “Low Grade Anxiety,” which sounds like a score submitted by a contemporary composer, to the thoughtful (and demented) “instructive lecture” by Professor Musikmacher on “Dogma Of Dogmas.” There are the breathy whistles of “Huff And Puff,” and what is that cell phone at the end of “Call Waiting” about? “Force Field” finds the percussionist in an eerie and threatening sonic environment which he must very carefully play his way out of, while “The Real Deal” is definitely not a raw deal! Yes, Jive At 5:05 demonstrates to us what we may have suspected was possible all along; namely, that art music and jazz could stimulate each other into a new expressiveness. I would, however, like to suggest an even simpler possibility: that the “cold slap upside the head” I referred to is nothing more than the sudden awareness that classically trained musicians can improvise and that jazz musicians have enough musicianship to keep up with their classically trained counterparts. Who knew? Old stereotypes die hard! ----- Steven Eversole