''Standards'' is an album by American jazz reedist

Ken Vandermark Ken Vandermark (born September 22, 1964) is an American composer, saxophonist, and clarinetist. A fixture on the Chicago-area music scene since the 1990s, Vandermark has earned wide critical praise for his playing and his multilayered composi ...

, which was recorded in 1994 and released on the Quinnah label.

Background

In the four sessions that produced the record, Vandermark chose from the large number of colleagues with whom he's got ongoing relationships and mix-and-matched them in four new improvising trios with different instrumental combinations. The initial inspiration for the project came for a similar one undertaken by German bassist

Peter Kowald Peter Kowald (21 April 1944 – 21 September 2002) was a German free jazz and free improvising double bassist and tubist. Career A member of the Globe Unity Orchestra, and a touring double-bass player, Kowald collaborated with many European ...

and a monthly series of improvisations called "Head Exam" at Chicago's HotHouse modelled after Derek Bailey's Company Week, which uses a free format to get people who don't usually play together to collaborate. The first lineup, with longtime partner bassist Kent Kessler and new associate drummer

Hamid Drake Hamid Drake (born August 3, 1955) is an American jazz drummer and percussionist. By the close of the 1990s, Hamid Drake was widely regarded as one of the best percussionists in jazz and improvised music. Incorporating Afro-Cuban, Indian, and Afr ...

, would be named later DKV Trio. Vandermark wanted to pair himself with another reed player and he chose NRG Ensemble co-saxophonist

Mars Williams Mars Williams (born May 29, 1955) is an American jazz and rock saxophonist. Exposed to big band and dixieland jazz by his trumpet-playing father, Williams played classical clarinet for ten years, then migrated to saxophone in his last year of hig ...

and asked Vandermark Quartet drummer Michael Zerang to join them. For the third combination, he is joined by Jim Baker, pianist in Caffeine, and Vandermark Quartet guitarist and violinist Daniel Scanlan. The last trio includes tabletop guitarist Kevin Drumm and percussionist Steve Hunt, third leg of Caffeine and drummer for the NRG Ensemble.Original Liner Notes by John Corbett

Reception

The Penguin Guide to Jazz ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' is a reference work containing an encyclopedic directory of jazz recordings on CD which were (at the time of publication) currently available in Europe or the United States. The first nine editions were compiled by ...

'' states "''Standards'' is experimental in that it sets Vandermark up as a member of four different trios... Each has something interesting to yield and some of it sounds almost glaringly new and alive."

Track listing

# "From the Force of the Term" – 7:02 # "Spirit of the Staircase" – 5:27 # "Out of Mere Impulse" – 8:52 # "Variant Reading" – 7:16 # "Experimental Trial" – 6:09 # "A Sick Man's Dreams" – 6:26 # "Year of His Age" – 5:07 # "It Is Solved By Walking" – 3:54 # "Nostalgia for the Mud" – 4:12 # "To Draw Back in Order To Make a Better Jump" – 4:30 # "Rage for Speaking" – 4:45 # "Word for Word and Letter for Letter" – 4:42

Personnel

– reeds *

–

trap set A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair of matching drumsticks ...

hand drums A hand drum is any type of drum that is typically played with the bare hand rather than a stick, mallet, hammer, or other type of beater. Types The following descriptions allude to traditional versions of the drums. Modern synthetic versions are ...

(tracks 1-3) * Kent Kessler –

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range: ** Bass (instrument), including: ** Acoustic bass gui ...

(tracks 1-3) *

–

saxophones The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to pro ...

(tracks 4-6) *Michael Zerang – trap set (tracks 4-6) *Jim Baker –

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

, ARP synthesizer (tracks 7-9) *Daniel Scanlan –

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

(tracks 7-9) * Kevin Drumm – electric guitar (tracks 10-12) *Steve Hunt – trap set (tracks 10-12)

References

{{Authority control 1995 albums Ken Vandermark albums