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Nate Wooley - The Almond
 Improvised
music is drawn from the well of experience and, as such, it is a lived
process. Playing creatively whether in a solo or a group context is, in
part, drawing on history and conception, but it also requires (or
encourages) getting to know oneself, one’s environment and one’s
partners. It’s social, psychological and experiential. In the best
instances, creative music can be sublime in the truest sense of the
word - standing before a mountain or precipice as both listener and
performer. Trumpeter and improvising composer Nate Wooley is a player
with his hands in a number of pots - jazz-derived small groups (of
which he’s both leader and sideman), as well as freer work with the
English percussionist Paul Lytton and stateside players like drummer
Ben Hall and guitarist Joe Morris. Wooley’s solo music, however, is in
an entirely different space than any aforementioned setting and
deserves to be taken on its own.
If, according to guitarist/improviser Derek Bailey, solo playing is the
process of developing one’s language apart from a collective scenario,
Wooley’s solos go even further - at least if one considers musical
language from a phrase-based approach. Following on the heels of 2010’s
feedback study Trumpet/Amplifier (Smeraldina-Rima), Wooley has
released two new solo recordings that are equally remarkable. The
closest thing to a traditional solo trumpet record that Wooley has cut
is [8] Syllables on Chicago’s Peira imprint. On the surface it
is a soloist’s project, with untreated acoustic trumpet moving through
passages of related sounds and phrasal palimpsests. There is also a
hint of ‘blowing the bell off the horn’ and putting the instrument
through its most extreme paces, ā la Bill Dixon’s early ‘70s solo work.
But Wooley is taking a different tack here, in that while he is
avoiding simple refined exploration of an improvisational vocabulary,
pushing the instrument is also part of a grander clause. In [8]
Syllables, sounds are organized through assigning them symbols
derived from the International Phonetic Alphabet (phonemes, intonation
and word/syllable separation), with a specific series of breaths
assigned to each. The effect is a challenging directed improvisation
for solo brass instrumentalist. In practice, circularity, tinny swipes,
screams and areas of winnowing, cyclical gulps separated by lengthy
tacet sections are among the composition’s syllables, but the cruel
abstractions that Wooley derives are his own immediate response.
The Almond developed from a 25-minute study
released through the online imprint Compost & Height and is
presented on this Pogus disc as a single 72-minute composition. Wooley
has taken a kernel of pure, unadulterated pitch modulation and through
overdubbing placed it in multiple scenarios - different rooms,
microphones and mutes were used. Though it is technically an ‘acoustic’
recording, the result is certainly related to electronic composition.
These sonic nuts are stretched out and overlap throughout the length of
the piece, with variations in hue subtly appearing in shifting relation
to a variety of overtones. Often, they take the appearance of other
instruments - voice, percussion, organ and, indeed, Wooley does
vocalize in a striking turn beginning around 58:00. One musical
antecedent is Swedish composer Folke Rabe’s Was?? (Wergo, 1968) in
which a simple word is electronically stretched into an amalgam of
drones and partials. While it’s hard to see this group of sounds as
being derived from ‘words’ in exactly the same way as Was?? or [8]
Syllables, expanding a granular series of phrases into something
environmental is a fascinating compositional approach. Wooley’s piece
unfolds gradually, though it does give the effect of infinite immersion
- akin to the graded, fuzzy tones and optical envelopment of a Mark
Rothko or Clyfford Still painting. There is objective sonic beauty too,
as a pinched, feminine wail peeks out from a series of pure and chuffed
tones, augmented by the lapping of a brass chorus that recedes just as
quickly as it advances, only knowable through living the work. It’s a
beautiful and perhaps even psychedelic experience, superseding
observable micro-changes. Compared to [8] Syllables, the end
result of The Almond feels more organic in its development,
swaddling in an acoustical tapestry rather than confronting with
materialist parameters. Nevertheless, both works are fascinating,
turning the ‘solo’ inside out while continuing to define Wooley as an
instrumentalist-composer of the highest order. - Clifford Allen, The
New York City Jazz Record
Listening to these two recent solo trumpet
projects by Nate Wooley made me think back to around 2000 when Franz
Hautzinger’s Gomberg for quarter-tone trumpet on Grob, Greg
Kelley’s Trumpet on Meniscus, and Axel Dörner’s solo release on A Bruit
Secret came out in relatively close proximity to each other; all of
which, if not reinventing the trumpet, certainly re-invigorated an
interest in the instrument. Sure, masters like Bill Dixon and Toshinori
Kondo had released strong solo statements before this, but here were
some new voice with prodigious technique who embraced the process of
constructing advanced forms from the elemental sounds of breath and
brass. Wooley’s first solo release, Wrong Shape to be a Story Teller,
came out a few years later, providing ample evidence that he was
another vital voice to keep an eye on. Since that release, Wooley has
used the solo setting to meld pure acoustic playing, amplification,
processing and tape constructions in order to develop projects of
singular vision. These two recent projects are stellar examples of this
musical process.
A 25-minute excerpt of his piece The Almond
was offered for download on the Compost and Height website two years
ago, providing an opportunity to experience this engulfing work. With
this release on Pogus, one can now hear the full 72-minute realization
of this lushly layered orchestral construction. In the liner notes,
Wooley states that “The piece is made only of trumpet tones, no
extended technique, no processing,” which may be true, but in no way
prepares the listener for the harmonic opulence of what is to come.
Digging in to the mechanics of the piece, Wooley explains that: “There
are 10 major loops running throughout the whole piece. Within each of
those large loops there are three to five smaller loops that have an
element of silence. Within those smaller loops there are four to 10
smaller loops with silence and made up of the basic harmonies that move
in and out. Each note of those harmonies are made up of three to six
different recordings of each single pitch, using different mic
techniques, room sounds, and mutes.” The result is an immersive
experience (and he rightfully suggests that this one be listened to
loudly), as the loops of buzzing and quavering tones accrue into
coursing layers of sound.
It is easy to flip to shorthand and describe the
piece as a modulating drone, but there’s far more at play here. Wooley
has meticulously charted the flow and density of the piece, building
upon a simple harmonic center that provides a continuous thread while
transforming the resulting overtones through the use of sumptuous
striations that ebb and flow throughout. The nature of the loops
amassing on each other creates a sound that brings to mind a huge pipe
organ, and one quickly loses track of the fact that a trumpet is at the
root of the music. At other times, there are shades of a vocal choir,
particularly as the densities begin to disperse at the end of the
piece. Wooley eschews simple structures of arc and trajectory, instead
depending upon the pulsating interactions of the overlapping sounds to
develop eddies of activity, which get woven in to the immersive mix.
Doubtless, hearing this one on a deluxe sound system would reveal even
more richness in the detail.
Wooley’s [8] Syllables is far more raw in
sound, while no less structured in process and execution. Here, he
created scores for a series of sounds utilizing a graphic
representation of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). This was
employed to create parameters of attack, body and decay of each sound.
Wooley laid out groupings of similar phoneme symbols to define the
deployment of traditional trumpet technique. He explains that “the idea
has never been to control the elements of the embouchure, mouth,
throat, tongue, et al., but to allow them to operate in an environment
of their own, separated from their typical roles in the production of
sound; essentially to set up a machine and let it run on its own, with
no results based judgment of the resultant product.” In this process,
the core kernels of spoken language are transposed to define the
structural form.
The piece is broken in to sections separated by
silence, with each section structured around the manipulation of the
prescribed technique repeated for a specific number of breaths, a
concept Wooley appropriated from James Tenney. While Wooley describes
the generation of sound as “the machine,” it is his spontaneous
integration of techniques established over years of playing, injected
with the rudiments of techniques used to vocalize language, that sparks
this piece into something beyond mere exercise. The choice of location
for the recording also comes in to play; the live reverberance of the
ISSUE Project Room adds yet another layer of nuance to the performance.
What could come off as dry and formal is anything but as Wooley’s
pinched tones, splayed flurries, hisses, shreds, scrapes, yelps, growls
and groans are transformed into circuitous trumpet lines that gather
force and momentum and then break into dramatic pause. Here, bereft of
amplification, processing, or tape treatments, the recording captures
him as he builds a transmogrified language for performance. - Michael
Rosenstein, Dusted
It took two days and four listens to decide how my
ears receive The Almond, a record for superimposed trumpet
loops and voice that – over the course of 72 minutes, expanding a first
version that lasted just 20 – could make an unfocused appraiser believe
that “it sounds like” (insert name here). In truth, this is an album
that does not ask for a mere “verdict”: it is better appreciated for
what it is, that is to say an experiment. Successful or not, that
mostly depends on the listener’s attitude.
Ever since the very beginning one realizes that
the instrument has been played in different environments and with
assorted manual devices (mutes for sure, and perhaps also some of the
thin metal sheets used by Wooley in his solitary performances). The
slight buzzing of certain pitches instantly erases any tendency to
smoothness as far as the timbre is concerned. The piece’s gravity is
maintained through a ceaseless succession of looping figurations of
varying extent which, in their unfolding, show a rather ample gamut of
shifting groupings – from consonant to clustery – that, working
together, give the music a temperament of mildly perturbed quietness.
The trumpet was not processed, but quite often the
mind fabricates suggestions of strings and female voices amidst the
sonic accumulation. On the other hand, the recurrent appearance of an
unhurried subsonic rub – sort of a low-frequency seesaw – balances the
predisposition to acute stridency that many of the sections reveal.
Most combinations are interesting, but the sense of awe-inspiring
vibration that we experience when listening to Phill Niblock (I’m
quoting an immediate and indeed not really valuable comparison read
elsewhere) is not the same. The upper partials herein are less
intimidating, not really inclined to fight if you get my point.
Anyhow, Wooley’s seriousness is indisputable, and
his attempt to tackle long-distance minimalism is valid on that basis.
Placing The Almond among the finest examples in the genre
would be an overstatement, however it remains a CD that lends itself to
frequent spins, stimulating the nerves in a way or another. - Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes
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