The tireless Ken Vandermark always seems to have a new project in the works or a band on the road. Since last summer, this young Chicago sax player has appeared in Boston with the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet, in a trio with European drummers Paul Lytton and Paul Loven, and in a bass-and-drums trio. He’s on the road once again, this time with his regular quintet in support of their seventh CD, airports for light (Atavistic). And he was back in Boston a week ago Wednesday for a performance at the Artists-at-Large Gallery in Hyde Park.
Whereas many of Vandermark’s projects come and go, he’s kept the Vandermark 5 together, with few personnel changes, since 1996. And it’s easy to hear why. They dig into his charts with a delightful, disciplined frenzy. They devour each piece, rocking out, swinging hard, or launching into abstract sound explorations with equal enthusiasm. Not only are the quintet his best vehicle for his own compositions, they’ve also become his repertory band. A limited-edition version of airports for light includes a bonus album of Sonny Rollins tunes, which they attack with the same gusto and insight as they do Vandermark’s originals.
The Hyde Park show opened with Rollins’s " John S., " on which Vandermark used unaccompanied, manipulating overtones and short phrases to foreshadow the composition’s stop/start melody. It was typical of the way the band deploy both extended techniques that push the music into new areas and traditional approaches that anchor it. Trombonist Jeb Bishop offered variations on the tune and a series of paraphrases of " Mean to Me " in a loose, conversational solo highlighted by tricky fills from drummer Tim Daisy. Then they tore into a rocking " Money Down, " during which saxophonist Dave Rempis’s rough-edged throaty tenor declaimed urgently while bassist Kent Kessler played long arco phrases that wandered off into their own world.
" Telephone, " a new piece slated to appear on the band’s next CD, opened with a nicely structured and sonically detailed solo played almost entirely on toms, bass drum, and snare. Daisy began folding in cymbal accents toward the end as he built up to the band’s dramatic entrance. A scorching Rempis alto solo came to an abrupt end, and the music landed in a still pool of arco bass overtones and pops and clucks from Vandermark’s bass clarinet. Then it was off to the races again for Bishop’s solo, which was once again full of imaginative give and take with Daisy.
The set ended with the epic " Six of One, " a multi-sectioned work that showcased each member. It opened in anxious quiet, with muted trombone and bass-clarinet drones forming the foundation for a plucked and bowed Kessler solo. Daisy upped the tension with a slowly escalating solo that exploded into the first of several themes, a series of interlocking riffs that propelled Bishop to his hottest solo of the set. The piece ebbed and flowed through several duet, trio, and ensemble passages, including a fragmented episode for clarinet, bass, and drums and a robust Rempis tenor solo that was launched from a snaky, Braxton-like melody.
Vandermark’s vision of a free-jazz tradition that embraces elements of rock, contemporary classical, and bebop is never clearer than in his quintet. These musicians play with obvious enjoyment, and that makes a powerful case for the leader’s big-hearted conception of what modern American jazz can be.