The Absolute Sound
Issue #160

Omer Avital: Asking No Permission
by Fred Kaplan

Avital and Luke Kaven, producer; Kaven, engineer. Smalls Records 011

Music: ****
Sonics: **** 1/2

In the mid-to-late 90’s, Smalls was one of the most vital jazz clubs in Manhattan, a forum for creative young musicians who didn’t fit in either the “uptown” mainstream or the “downtown” avant-garde. The music went on practically all night. A young engineer named Luke Kaven – trained in the art of minimal miking by the late David Baker – put a lot of it on two-track tape, and he’s gradually releasing it on his own label, Smalls Records.

Omer Avital led a sextet (four saxophones, a drummer, and Avital on bass) that played the 2 A.M. set on Tuesdays. It’s an amazingly tight band (including Mark Turner and Greg Tardy on tenor saxes) playing terrific music, all but one of the seven tunes written by Avital. It’s mainly through-composed music, with daring twists: a dirty blues backed by lush, three-part harmony; a chamber rondo against hard-core drum rolls, a frantic Ornette Coleman-style piece, with two of the saxes swirling dervish circles around each other, till they imperceptibly segue into a straight-up 4/4 swing.

The sound is extraordinary. You can practically see the four horn players standing there. Even when they play at once, their tones, overtones, and images never scramble or merge. You get the wood and snap of Avital’s bass and every piece of Ali Jackson’s trap set, to a degree I’ve rarely heard on a Red Book CD. It sounds more like a good SACD or even vinyl.

Further listening: Jason Lindner: Premonition; Frank Hewitt: Not Afraid to Live