[JPL] Ken Peplowski & Howard Alden NYTs Live Review Pushing the Traditional Toward New Destinations

[Jazz Promo Services]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/03/arts/music/03alde.html


November 3, 2007

Music Review

Pushing the Traditional Toward New Destinations

By NATE CHINEN
The interplay was congenial, cooperative and briskly confident at Bargemusic
on Thursday night during the first of two sets by the guitarist Howard Alden
and the clarinetist and tenor saxophonist Ken Peplowski. What it wasn¹t, on
the whole, was conservative or tired. The two musicians were covering
familiar turf in one guise or another, but with a spirit of inquiry that
renewed itself at every turn.

There¹s a precedent of duologue between these artists, along with some
overlapping history. Both arrived in New York in the early 1980s ‹ Mr.
Peplowski originally hails from Cleveland, Mr. Alden from Newport Beach,
Calif. ‹ and immediately started making waves in traditional-jazz circles.
In the 1990s they made some solid duo albums, now out of print. These days
they live one floor apart in the same apartment building.

³Pow-Wow,² their new release on the Arbors label, confirms the depth of
their rapport. And their performance on Thursday, which largely drew from
the album, offered even clearer evidence. Whether chugging through a
standard or finessing a waltz, Mr. Alden and Mr. Peplowski worked together
with fluidity and poise.

Mr. Alden, on a seven-string guitar, carried the greater burden of
accompaniment. He made this seem natural, if not easy: when he dipped into
the lower register to play a bass line, it was simply an extension of his
dynamic fretboard filigree.

Mr. Peplowski played his clarinet with warmth and ebullience. His work on
tenor was just as strong, and a touch more modern: on Cole Porter¹s ³Dream
Dancing,² which opened the set, his phrases came in dartlike, insistent
gusts.

Attacking the title track of their album, a tune by the guitarist Joe Puma
based on the changes of Ray Noble¹s ³Cherokee,² Mr. Alden and Mr. Peplowski
served up a highlight of the set. A question-and-answer melody nudged them
toward bebop, the turf of Charlie Parker and his successors. (The guitarist
Jimmy Raney had a similar tune called ³Parker 51,² which he memorably played
with the tenor saxophonist Stan Getz.)

There was a hint of the archaic in ³Pow Wow² ‹ its bridge features an
interpolation of the Tin Pan Alley nugget ³Hello, Ma Baby² ‹ but Mr.
Peplowski and Mr. Alden treated the tune as a fresh challenge. After an
intricate tandem improvisation, they closed with a cascading line in tight
harmony, evoking the thrill of a headlong race down a flight of stairs.

Bargemusic concerts continue through Nov. 30 at the Fulton Ferry Landing in
Brooklyn, next to the Brooklyn Bridge; (718) 624-2083, bargemusic.org.


Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company