Don’t Explain

John Tchicai, Garrison Fewell, Tino Tracanna, Paolino Dalla Porta, Massimo Manzi, Big Chief Dreaming, Black Saint. John Tchicai has been called free jazz’s answer to Lee Konitz. Both players bring qualities of fragility and hesitancy to the act of improvisation; they avoid confident recycling of familiar patterns in favour of fresh, careful note-choices, the emphasis falling as much on tonal nuances and quaverings as on the actual notes. Like Konitz, he’s a musical nomad — the only thing you can predict about a Tchicai record is that it will be on a different label from the last one and have completely different personnel. Big Chief Dreaming is co-credited to Tchicai, American guitarist Garrison Fewell and the Italian saxophonist Tino Tracanna, each of whom bring some elegantly offbeat compositions to the table. It’s their common mix of light irony and a sense of passionate tenderness that makes for common ground here, and permits them to get away with this amount of stylistic hopscotch: “Prayer for Right Guidance” is an Indian (as in cowboys-and-) war-dance graced with one of Tchicai’s most haunting solos; his “Yogi in Disguise” is Monk’s “Friday the 13th” reimagined by Lennie Tristano; “X-Ray Vision” is a yearning ballad that belies its Cagean compositional origins; “Queen of Ra” is a dark, explosive hymn to Sun Ra. Fewell and Tracanna, new names to me, both play beautifully and contribute some of the best material (Tracanna’s “Simplicity” is brilliantly minimalist — just two chords and a dreamy melody). It’d be good to hear Tchicai develop these relationships further — though, given the unpredictable nature of his discography, who knows if that will happen? **** out of 5.

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