Ben Goldberg’s Duo Album with Andrew Stephens

Cover design for Downward Spiral (from the Bandcamp Web page for the album)

This past Friday jazz clarinetist Ben Goldberg released the latest album from his BAG Production Records. Downward Spiral is a collection of ten duo tracks performed with trumpeter Andrew Stephens. The first nine of these are of a genre that Goldberg calls “Activities.” As Goldberg puts it: “Activities result from the attempt to unravel mystery and have the non-paradoxical effect of leading one deeper into the many mysteries.”

Each of the track titles serves to describe the nature of an Activity. Those titles are as follows:

1. Off-Step Half-Set
2. Imperfect Fourth with Half-Step Adjustment
3. Half-Diminished Mess Around
4. Fifths Up
5. Some Bridge Ideas
6. F Blues
7. Play the Same Note
8. Downward Spiral
9. 4-3-1 Activities

While some of them are more “technical” than others, over the course of multiple listening experiences one is likely to begin to recognize the association between performance and title without too much difficulty. As a “reward” for listener attention, Stephens and Goldberg recorded one final track, which is their take on Charlie Parker’s “Perhaps.”

I have to confess that it took me a while to track down where Parker himself had recorded this particular composition. It showed up in The Complete Savoy and Dial Studio Recordings: 1944–1948. The recording session took place on September 24, 1948; and Parker was leading his “All Stars” combo, consisting of Miles Davis on trumpet, John Lewis on piano, Curly Russell on bass, and Max Roach on drums. For those that are serious fanatics, it did not show up on any of the recordings Dean Benedetti made of Parker improvisations!

This exercise left me wondering whether any of those Activities (if not all of them) could be taken as a “response” to the “call” of Parker and perhaps (elliptic reference intended) the recordings he made with different combos. Because they are “activities,” I would guess that each of the tracks accounted for a spontaneous performance. Whatever their origins may be, the tracks selected for the Downward Spiral album make for an engaging listening experience, both taken on its own or associated with the title assigned to it.

Downward Spiral is available for digital streaming and download through a Bandcamp Web page.