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Earlier this year Zerang released a collection of duets with various Lebanese players, Cedarhead, on Kerbaj’s Al Maslakh label. Most of the Lebanese folks favor a decidedly abstract brand of improvisation, where the trademark sound of a given instrument is frequently destroyed or forfeited in favor of amorphous noises, hums, clatter, and whinnies. Mostly Zerang, who loves Arabic music and was born to Assyrian parents, follows the “when in Rome” rule–there’s hardly a traditional Middle Eastern sound to be found. But there are a few exceptions: Raed Yassin, who usually plays the bass, manipulates tapes of traditional music and regional pop, and Zerang finds a way to implant driving darbuka grooves neatly into the sonic miasma.
Playing later Wednesday evening is the veteran Norwegian saxophonist Frode Gjerstad, a kind of invisible bridge between the pastoral “Nordic tone” of the country’s first ECM generation (Jan Garbarek, Arild Andersen, Terje Rypdal) and the current wave of more aggressive polymath innovators. Gjerstad has remained committed to a brawny strain of free jazz, braiding pure energy with loose motific elaboration. He’s in good company on The Other Side, a trio date with bassist William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake cut in Chicago back in 2000 and finally issued earlier this year as a download-only release by Ayler Records. Gjerstad’s got a sharp yet slightly thin sound on the alto, but he’s like the Energizer Bunny, storming over every peak and through every valley with unflagging vigor. He’s joined by the Norwegian rhythm section of bassist Oyvind Storesund and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love (pictured), who’s brilliant in this kind of context: driving, prodding, and explosive.
