In the past couple of years the British saxophonist Paul Dunmall has engaged in an intriguing experiment by creating the Duns Limited Edition label (DLE). The CD-ROM format permits him to release discs with the rapidity and urgency of bulletins, and to experiment with a variety of genres – loud Coltrane-influenced free playing, folk musics, Indian music, spoken-word, even a pair of solo bagpipe discs. The State of Moksha is the 22nd disc to be issued by this phenomenally productive cottage industry, and touches on most of Dunmall’s preoccupations. He opens the piece by intoning a brief text by Swami Sivananda concerning the state of moksha (the condition in which the soul is released from the fetters of transmigration) over a gentle drone. This drone is sustained throughout the piece, while the instrumental textures otherwise change continuously. Paul Rogers carries much of the piece’s weight, exploiting his six-string bass to produce an astonishing range of colours and textures, often in the cello or violin range rather than what one would expect from his instrument. The generally meditative texture of the hour-long performance is ruptured at its exact centre when Dunmall at last pulls out his soprano for an energetic three-way exchange with the guitarist and bassist; elsewhere he keeps to the margins of the music, delicately colouring it with a wash of vibes or the hoot of an ocarina. There are one or two lapses on the disc – notably an irritatingly plunky passage for vibes and theremin at the 40-minute mark, which is also marred by distortion on the vibes (on what is otherwise an excellently recorded disc) – but on the whole it sustains interest for its duration. The State of Moksha is something of a workshop disc, but also an intriguing musical document in its own right.

Fungii Mama features a fine British band led by trumpeter Henry Lowther and guitarist Jim Mullen. The recording derives from an April 2002 gig at London’s The Queens pub, a Victorian building miraculously saved last year from being turned into a pizza parlour. The Queens has a no-cover policy, so the audience is a mix of those who are there for the music and those who aren’t – much background chatter is audible on the recording, unfortunately – but the venue’s vibe is obviously a good one: the quartet sound like they’re having a great time, and the tenor saxophonist Simon Picard pops out of the audience to sit in on the last track. I’ve encountered Lowther frequently as a member of Barry Guy’s LJCO, where he often was deployed in the more jazz-based passages as a contrast to the orchestra’s harder-edged free-improvisors; it’s good to hear him in a swinging small-group context here, tackling a nicely chosen array of jazz standards. The choice of Blue Mitchell’s calypso “Fungii Mama” is particularly pleasing (though the pun in the title is inexcusable!); and it also serves to point up one of Lowther’s stylistic influences. This is an enjoyable, very playable disc that’s worth seeking out.

Tim Kendall's Two Travelers is fluent but undistinguished mainstream jazz. The best tracks live up to the disc’s title by pairing Kendall with the alto saxophonist Todd Bashore, who has a pointed style that reminds this listener of Kenny Garrett, and the horns strike some sparks on faster tunes like “If I Were a Bell” and “Unit Seven.” But Kendall doesn’t have the personality or ambition to make something special out of an overfamiliar setlist, and there are a few ill-judged tracks here. Why, for instance, did Kendall think that “Lush Life” would benefit from being performed uptempo with just piano and drums (no bass)? “All of You” is given an equally bizarre treatment, becoming an uptempo modal feature for Kendall’s bass clarinet (which, on this showing, seems very much his second instrument). Pianists Jeb Patton and Jeb Patterson are close enough in name and style that I was wondering if the sleevenotes had a typo; I think they are different people, with Patterson the more heavily indebted to McCoy Tyner. Neither is exactly a delicate player, but they’re contending with such an ugly-sounding, out-of-tune piano that one can’t entirely blame them for their clunkiness.

Chris McNulty is an Australian singer who has been based in the States since the late 1980s. I Remember You is a decent effort which nonetheless just doesn’t click for me. The arrangements (I would guess that they are the work of Bollenback, given that their most prominent element is his rather busy guitarwork) are OK, though the rotely hipped-up versions of tunes like “Easy to Love” and “I Remember You” are hardly subtle or inviting. But McNulty’s wan voice is hard to warm to, and her one composition credit, the cloying “Pablo,” suggests that songwriting isn’t her forte: there are some awkwardly procrustean moments in the lyrics, as when she forces a rhyme of “know” with “PabLO” or accents “whispered” as “whisPERED.” Vibist Joe Locke makes a welcome appearance on a couple tracks, but it’s not enough to give the album more than a minor lift. Missable.

Can't Stop That Good Old Feelin' . . . is syrupy synth-laden fuzak interleaved with the odd bash at straightforward acoustic jazz. At least the cheesiness is given a little variety: the CD starts with latenite titles like “A Used Revlon” and “A Dirty Little Trick” before making an unexpected swerve towards the spiritual realm (“Zeal,” “The Great and the Grand”). Avoidable.

World of Tomorrow’s Global Citizen is a braindead mix of psychedelic thrash and free jazz. Even to eke out some pleasure from the disc via the “it’s so bad it’s good” strategy takes, I’ve found, a considerable effort. But however abysmal it is, it still seems the height of brilliance compared to another release from the same label, Bonnie Kane and Ernesto Diaz-Infante’s Mysterious Planet. Kane is a Renaissance woman of sorts: she is co-leader of World of Tomorrow and several other bands, runs the Sweetstuff label, created the eyesore cover of Global Citizen, and manages to be the worst musician on either disc despite strong competition. You might think from Mysterious Planet’s track titles that you were in for syrupy New Age drivel, but actually it’s more or less nonstop racket. It’s rather alarming to think that 45 minutes of Mysterious Planet were first broadcast on KFJC Radio in California – this is a performance that starts with the sound of a man hollering and spasmically choking over the strains of an accordion and some inept tenor saxophone . . . and then gets worse.

Nate Dorward

Cadence, December 2002