Alive - 2023 by Ratchet Orchestra

I don’t care how you look at it, design is the key to artistic endeavour.
— Max Roach

Evan Parker, in a conversation with this author, once remarked that the music he has been playing for over a half a century was something like living in a prison of his own choosing. Surprising as this may be from someone who has dedicated his life to the least formally constrained music you can think of, free improvisation, it makes one pause and think that every musician, regardless of style or practice, is bound to make choices of one kind or another to stamp upon the vast expanse of music his or her own imprint. This brings to mind another good point from his French counterpart Louis Sclavis who opined that the difference between the artist and any other person are not their ideas, because everyone has them, but the choices they make.

After having gleaned these thoughts and maybe discovering in parallel the music contained in this close to 90-minute double-barreled sound packet, the listener will be struck by the wide-range of choices displayed by this orchestra and its ringleader, all of whom accommodate themselves with living in prisons of their own choosing, but theirs left wide open and all doors unlocked.

In a lineage ascending from Mingus to modern-day leaders like Barry Guy, Dave Holland, or William Parker, Nicolas Caloia is more than a bass player, but a conjurer
of creative forces, tirelessly investing himself in small and large group projects alike, this one, the 20-strong Ratchet Orchestra, tipping the balance to the far side of the jazz big band scale.

But this outfit of his is no modern-day ersatz of that lineage, its music extends far beyond that tradition. Caloia, it must be noted, is not a conservatory jazzer gone rogue, but he was trained in the classical field. Jazz, however, is no terra incognita to him either, for he has covered tunes out of the Sun Ra book, even had its now 100-year young altoist Marshall Allen as a special guest for a band performance a decade ago.

Caloia reveals much more here than his natural proclivities towards free improvisation but the depth of his musical field as a composer. Case in point is this live concert from the Guelph Jazz Festival
in 2023. In a statement of purpose, the bassist says it best: “I explore the slow transformation of sound as a structural component. I imagine composed material shifting between the background to foreground, changing colour and timbre while providing a structure and narrative to which the orchestra’s improvisers add
their own designs.” In this band’s eighth release, to date its magnum opus, that outlook is more fully realized than ever.

The musicians literally lift the scores off the pages, these conceived in a range of conceptual designs. The first of these is devised in traditional notation, of which Extraterrestrial, The Door, Common Man and the arresting opener Backstage show his wherewithal—dig how the loose fragments of the latter piece suddenly crystallize into a breathtaking ensemble finale. (But the composer is also mindful to insert written instructions within his scores to provide added guidance to his charges.) Next are what one could call unstaffed scores, partially graphic, but devised in autonomous parts that allow musicians to rely more on their own choices to shape the music, as exemplified in The Firmament, Blood and What We Know. Aeon, for its part, offers a third approach, a single-page of instructions spelling out the piece’s road map. Of the many facets culled in this superbly recorded concert, the inclusion of vocalist Kim Zombik provides an added value to the whole, her own words and melody lines seamlessly woven into the wefts of the opening and closing tracks. This collaboration with the singer, as the bassist notes, is very special to him, and can be heard to greater extent on two discs of their project Silvervest.

Based on the enthusiastic responses of the audience between numbers, the show was enthralling, and listeners of this album should be just as excited by it. No applause are necessary here, but please avail yourself of the privilege of pressing the repeat button on your player.
Marc Chénard, August 2024

Musique Rayonnante proposes an online audio collection which offers a sample of some of the open and abstract music coming out of Montreal in the early 21 century.

musiquerayonnante.org