NOTE: “CONVERSATIONS,” NA1044CD, is a reissue of the previously-released duo CD of that name, and is now included in the release, "THE STONE SET."
The Stone Set was selected for inclusion in the ten best recordings of 2011 by Ken Waxman of The New York City Jazz Record. Conversations was selected as one of the ten best recordings of 2008 by Bill Shoemaker and Art Lange.
The Stone Set, New Artists Records
Connie Crothers, piano
Bill Payne, clarinet
Ken Waxman
Jazz Word (www.jazzword.com)
February 2012
Experience playing in cruise ship ensembles; gigs in Broadway pit bands; periods of time as a Las Vegas and Los Angeles sideman backing Swing Era singers and comedians; plus many years as music director for Ringling Bros. Circus and in tent bands under other big tops aren’t standard credentials for cerebral improvisers. Yet these two CDs showcase just that: the sophisticated and free-form reed intonations of now Las Vegas-based, former jack-of-all-musical-trades clarinetist Bill Payne, in the company of Brooklyn-based pianist Connie Crothers, with whom he first studied in1981 “to play the music that was in my heart”.
Consisting of a reissue of the duo’s Conversations from 2006 and new selections recorded at New York’s the Stone in 2009, this two-CD program is the epitome of first-class Chamber Jazz, But unlike many of those efforts which wear their impressionistic hearts on their sleeves – or on their music stands – The Stone Set/Conversations consists of 26 brief or mid-length originals whose genesis is exploratory Jazz improvisation and whose performances are as unpretentious as they are significant.
Often unfairly characterized as a clone of her piano teacher Lennie Tristano – he did, after all present her solo Carnegie Recital Hall concerts in the 1970s – Crothers’ talent is such that she has comfortably worked with non-Tristanoites such as trumpeter Roy Campbell, alto saxophonist Jemeel Moondoc and drummer Max Roach, besides the usual suspects.
On this set abstractions take the place of contrafacts, with her piano tessitura expanded to take in the widest possible allusions. A piece such as “ Conversation #7” on the second CD for instance, finds her riffing keyboard lines become more staccato, kinetic and note-crammed as she exposes pedal-pushed, low-pitched chords. Meanwhile Payne’s tongue vibrations and glissandi become more strident and intense as they meet in a broken-octave concordance.
Crothers’ cunning asides and technical strength hadn’t lessened three years later as proven on such tracks as “Your Dream” and “Revolt of the Birds” from The Stone Set. On the former her playing ping-pongs from near equal temperament to rolling textures from the piano’s lowest keys plus key-slapping. Meantime the clarinetist trills gently and distinctively, moderato and mid-tempo, as he lets her define the theme. More staccato, “Revolt of the Birds” is enlivened with Crothers’ cascading chords and fortissimo friction, and is completed by her pressurized pumps as Payne asserts himself with altissimo screeches and nasal reed bites.
The collection of high-frequency jabs, key pops, full-force splashes and note clusters that Crothers uses on Conversations, as well as Payne’s unique blending of mellow serpentine lines, gorgeous harmonized trills plus agitated snorts, honks and vamps are merely given a finer point two years later. In fact there’s a direct line from how the duo perceives and performs a track such as “Conversation #10” and the concluding “Jubilation” on The Stone Set. This is related to the reedist’s stuttering, repetitive phrasing which is also invested with a certain lyricism in both pieces. At the same time the pianist’s muscular syncopation, studded with unexpected key flicks and jabs on “Conversation #10” becomes more challenging on “Jubilation”. By 2009 Crothers is ranging all over the keys with cross-handed pounding and contrapuntal variations, causing Payne initially to express himself in reed bites and aviary chirps. This lively interface is first moderated by the clarinetist and when Crothers downshifts to meet his contralto lines he caricatures her still fervent high-frequency lines with Woody Woodpecker-like chuckles.
As unheralded as they are excellent, Payne and Crothers aren’t part of any currently fashionable Jazz trends. With Crothers having some prominence residing in the so-called Centre of the Jazz World, it’s the reed man who would need a higher profile – or at least some at all. This exemplary two-CD set that focuses on telepathic improvisation should do that, since whatever the duo attempts here, they succeed at superbly.
Grego Applegate Edwards
All About Jazz / Gapplegate Music Review
October 2011
Connie Crothers and Bill Payne Engage in Lively New-Improv Clarinet-Piano Duets: "The Stone Set"
Pianist Connie Crothers is back with another nice offering: The Stone Set (New Artists 1044/1048), a two-CD volume of duets with clarinetist Bill Payne. The first disk captures the two playing a set at NY's The Stone, 2009, probably the premier venue these days for what's important in new jazz and free improvisation. The second disk, Conversations, covers another session of the two playing in Connie's loft in Brooklyn.
It is a chance to hear the two interacting with an open-form set of improvisations. Bill Payne favors cleanly articulated, almost classically pure clarinet sounds that fall into a "new music" hybrid between jazz-based improv and avant classical freedom. He reminds every once in a while of Rolf Kuhn, then, no, he reminds of nobody but himself. Ms. Crothers responds with some of her finest open-framework improvisations to date, corralling all her pianistic textural, harmonic and melodic spontaneities to the interactions at hand.
It's rarified, high-road modernism and it's a model of creative interaction. Connie Crothers, as I've asserted in an earlier review, is an important force in the music today. Her many years playing this music have allowed her to dig ever deeper into her fertile musical imagination and express it all with superb musicianship. And she has found an able and fully compatible collaborator in Bill Payne.
Kudos!
Marc Medwin
All About Jazz: New York
November 2008
Connie Crothers is one of the most versatile pianists on a scene that is so often mislabeled free jazz. Her pianism has been cultivated through long years of study and deep listening, evident in each tone, chord and gesture. Overwhelming intensity, at whatever volume, is juxtaposed with transparent beauty in a style that is as unique as it is unpredictable.
Crothers has the perfect partner in clarinetist Bill Payne, with this disc of dialogues belying a long musical relationship, as evidenced by the moment in "Conversation no. 3" when Payne plays a two-note figure, immediately following which Crothers flourishes downward to land on Payne's E-flat. In fact, counterpoint is the duo's MO throughout. It opens "Conversation 4" and is even more rigorous in the tenth conversation. Crothers' Tristano association is made plain in the latter, but as the tenth track heats up, bluesy inflections and clusters pervade, leading to a surprisingly trilled ending from Payne. By contrast, there are the Messiaenic sonorities of "Conversation 12," with Payne beginning in lower registers and with such rhythmic freedom it almost sounds like a movement left out of "Quartet for the End of Time."
The duo's rhythmic diversity is stunning. "Conversation 1" finds them establishing motoric rhythms in variously shifting meters seemingly without effort. If several of the improvised pieces do, in fact, invoke the high-dynamics usually associated with Cecil Taylor, such concerns are momentary and they reflect only one facet of this duo's remarkable ability to communicate quickly and efficiently on many levels. This is improvised music at its finest.
Ed Hazel
www.pointofdeparture.org Issue 18
August 2008
There’s not a wasted note on these tightly constructed, pithy duets between pianist Connie Crothers and clarinetist Bill Payne. Each of the fourteen improvisations sprouts from an initial phrase played by each partner and grows by means of elaborations, variations, and recapitulations of the seed planted by the first notes. Throughout each improvisation, Crothers and Payne remain absolute equals, synchronizing their lines of development without there ever appearing to be a leader and a follower. But they are clearly listening to one another in these intimate dialogues. Each will pick up a hint from the other – mimic a contour, shadow a phrase – but use it only long enough to weave it into what he or she is doing. It’s a kind of a hall of fun house mirrors effect, where images are warped and reflected back and forth until they are utterly transformed. Tempos remain at slow and medium, but there’s lots of variety in other aspects of their collaboration. “Conversation #2” is full of short gestures, Crothers making brief sweeping arcs as if she were juggling scarves, while Payne dips and arcs like a dragon fly. “Conversation #4” is a braid, a macramé construction of lines and knots of chords that form beautiful patterns. On “The Desert and the City,” Payne’s clarinet moves like a leaf buffeted by the wind, tracing long peregrinations, then wafting upward in little curlicues, or using multiphonics to jump in place. Crothers under girds and enfolds Payne with a kaleidoscopic progression of chords and note clusters. The precision with which they fit together is uncanny at time. Like all students of Lennie Tristano, Crothers is often branded as cool, but this is very passionate music, a product of intense concentration and discipline as well as emotional openness and depth.
Chris Kelsey
www.jazz.com
August 27, 2008
Clarinetist Bill Payne is the very definition of the itinerant musician—his extensive résumé lists stints with at several traveling circuses, Broadway and Vegas shows, tours with the Russ Carlyle Orchestra, cruise-ship bands, and the infrequent bad day gig. Pianist Crothers's pedigree is a bit purer from a jazz perspective: once the protégé of Lennie Tristano, she remains one of the most exceptional representatives of his musical philosophy. Payne cites studies with Crothers as a turning point in his life. He's now obviously her peer. This track presents the pair in intense one-on-one engagement. Payne's non-tonal lines are classically tinged, augmented by a jazz musician's concern with forward motion and free expression. Crothers has the touch of a first-rate Debussy interpreter, and here her lines as well possess an impressionistic strain. Each player gives as much as he/she takes. Their interplay is indeed conversational, albeit highly animated—even argumentative. Crothers's status as one of the most accomplished in/out improvisers is only enhanced b y this release. Payne's rep, newly minted compared to hers, benefits even more.
Scott Yanow
L.A. Jazz Scene
July 2008
"Rather than a high-energy blowout, these collaborations leave space, are generally thoughtful and feature close communication between the two musicians, whether they are echoing each other’’s thoughts or offering a pair of contrasting voices. Sounding very much like 'conversations,' the improvisations give Crothers and Payne opportunities to create new melodies and thoughts on the spot, and it often makes for an intriguing listen. It is obvious that they have played together many times before and have a familiarity with each other’’s playing even as they continually surprise each other."