Jay Roulston: Monkey Mind Control

JAY ROULSTON
Monkey Mind Control

Conduit Records

Seattle trumpeter Jay Roulston’s Monkey Mind Control is the second release for Conduit Records; the first, Julian Priester’s In Deep End Dance, was one of my top ten choices for best jazz album of 2002. With nearly half of 2003 out of the way, it’s safe to say that Monkey Mind Control could be in the running for this year’s best of list. Exploring the world of electronic jazz pioneered by Miles Davis and more recently explored by such artists as Dave Douglas, Matthew Shipp, and Erik Truffaz, Roulston and his comrades have managed to expand on such previous journeys while sounding fresh and maintaining an individual sound.

Along for the ride are drummer Byron Vannoy and bassist Geoff Harper, both of whom contributed to Priester’s album, and guitarist Beck Henderer-Pena, co-founder of the Conduit label. Beck is working inside the Pete Cosey tradition, using delays, distortion and whammy pedals to create unique sounds on his guitar that are often otherworldly while still maintaining the harmonic integrity of the tune. Roulston applies some effects to his trumpet as well, but the entire album was recorded in a single day without studio overdubs or effects of any kind. In other words, the quartet can reproduce this sound live.

“Cobra Command” starts things off with some distorted guitar sounds, followed by the introduction of a pulsing bass and drumbeat. Rather than provide any busy improvisational lines that contrast with the atmosphere set up by the rest of the group, Roulston allows his notes to hang in the air as one more element in the soundscape. Soon Vannoy begins to step things up a notch, providing Tony Williams-inspired bursts of energy that push the piece along toward its conclusion. It’s a spacey introduction and folks might be forgiven for pegging the band as another entry in the drum ‘n’ bass sound played by live instruments sweepstakes. “Four Point Landing” dispels this impression, however, as Roulston plays a broken, yet somehow lyrical introductory line before he is joined and pushed ahead by Vannoy. Their duet recalls Coltrane and Elvin Jones until Vannoy settles into a groove and some guitar chords provide a base for Roulston to improvise in a very straight ahead fashion. The piece winds down with trumpet and guitar repeating the same lyrical phrase over an increasingly turbulent rhythm section, a la “Nefertiti.” The front line gradually slows the phrase down while the rhythm section keeps things going at the same level, creating a wonderful tension and sense of freedom without losing one’s bearings.

In fact, one of the best things about this CD is the way that these musicians are able to combine the organic and the electronic, the structured and the free. As Roulston soars over Henderer-Pena’s bursts of sunspot interference guitar at the beginning of “Cycles of Life” they sound like some kind of instrumental, improvisation-based Radiohead, and indeed they may have as much in common with that post-modern rock band as they do with the Davis groups of Agharta and Pangea (an impression that is strengthened by some of the track titles—“Big Spaceship, Sharpening Coins,” “Drift,” and “Moth(u)s.)” The individual members of the group can give the impression that each is doing their own thing, but things never break down into the noisy sounds of anarchy. Listening to Monkey Mind Control, one is reminded of the fact that there was a lot of free jazz contained within the early electronic experiments of performers like Miles Davis, Chick Corea, and Weather Report. It’s an element that was mostly gone by the time electric jazz came to be called fusion, and it was part of what differentiated the music from commercial rock and pop music. It’s nice to hear Roulston and company exploring this element and maintaining such control over the overall sound.

Monkey Mind Control sometimes gives the listener the impression of a powerhouse rock album, largely because there is a high energy level and a lot of great interaction in the playing of the four musicians, but it’s actually amazing how much of this album allows for free improvisation (or at least seems to) while being truly lyrical and meditative, despite all the electronics and free blowing. However, the band is able to rock convincingly when they wish to, as on the beautiful track “For Tom.”

By paying as much attention to the overall color and feeling of each track, Jay Roulston and his fellow musicians have managed to craft an album that the best and most interesting elements of free jazz and electric jazz and combine them into a statement that is at once unique, powerful, and utterly contemporary without sacrificing musicianship or musical quality. Listeners interested in hearing one of the most coherent albums of contemporary improvisational music in recent memory must hear Monkey Mind Control. It’s the future.