Avram Fefer (1964, San Francisco, CA) and Mike Bisio (1955, Troy, NY) have been playing together since the 1990s. Avram had been suggesting for some time that he'd like to do a duo with Mike. We tried to hook it up in October 2004 during one of Mike's eastern swings, but were blocked by scheduling problems. With greater advance planning, schedules fell into alignment for this session.
One could look at this duo as a non-working working group in that, while Mike and Avram are glad to work together, the 3,000 miles that divides their homes makes a difficult situation even more improbable. This date offers the chance to pair two fine improvisers/soloists and give them the opportunity to expand their creative muses in the demanding confines of a duo.While admittedly this creates a pressure situation, one must remember that it is from pressure that diamonds are created.
Avram is a chewy, multi-directional player capable of leaving a lesser bassist flatfooted, I'd expect. Like the best of creative improvising artists, he welcomes the challengeof strength, as his previous CIMP session bassists (Wilber Morris and Ken Filiano) give witness. And in Mike Bisio there is deep strength.
Mike is a musician's musician: a bit quirky, yes, but I have had handfuls of musicians tell me how they love (or would love) to play with him, and/or former students who speak in awe of his abilities. This is not the first time Mike's engaged in duo, as his recordings with Dan Blunck, Joe Giardullo, Eyvind Kang, and two sessions with Joe McPhee attest.
Fefer and Bisio: a musical meeting at which you and I have a front row seat.
To set the stage: Avramsaid the two were going to play a program of compositions as a suite-like series of musical essays which, all told, might run between 20 and 50 minutes. Mike stands at the ready and Avram launches into what actually makes up the finale of the suite, a nice thoughtful tenor solo (Love [Keepin' on]) with Sonny Rollins-like deliberation. The opening of the suite is next approached with Avram on alto flute while Mike picks thumb piano-like rhythm patterns from beneath the bass' bridge.
After Ancestral Voices, Avram, with bass clarinet in hand, plays off one of his own familiar riffs which serves as a nice platform for one of Mike's big solos as well as for energized interplay between the two. Avram has a nice understanding of the subtleties and nuances of the bass clarinet. The two segue into some lovely counter-melodies before returning to the riff theme, after which Mike creates abridge and Avram returns to tenor sax.
The suite is an extended journey and over two days the duo moved thoroughly and surely through themes and statements, expanding their outing to complement the silence, envelop the listeners, and play into the cocoon of sound.
During the recording session, Avram had requested that we increase the fireplace burn, saying that, while he was not cold (outside temperatures were below zero), he enjoyed the ambiance of the fire. And so, the crackle of burning wood may be occasionally audible during the quiet peaks.
On a logistical note, it should be mentioned that parts of the suite were recorded in sequence as whole units. There was more than one take of the suite and the whole suite as issued here is made up of individual parts from those takes, sequenced as originally played and intended.
Robert D. Rusch - January 18, 2005
