''Utility Hitter'' is an album by American jazz reedist

Ken Vandermark Ken Vandermark (born September 22, 1964) is an American composer, saxophonist, and clarinetist. A fixture on the Chicago-area music scene since the 1990s, Vandermark has earned wide critical praise for his playing and his multilayered composit ...

, which was recorded in 1995 and released on the Quinnah label. He leads the Barrage Double Trio, composed of one bass-drums-reeds trio (Nate McBride, Curt Newton, Vandermark) from Boston and other (

Kent Kessler Kent Kessler (born January 28, 1957) is an American jazz double-bassist. Career Although born in Crawfordsville, Indiana, Kessler grew up on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He began playing trombone at age ten. When he was thirteen, he moved with his f ...

Hamid Drake Hamid Drake (born August 3, 1955) is an American jazz drummer and percussionist. By the close of the 1990s, Hamid Drake was widely regarded as one of the best percussionists in jazz and improvised music. Incorporating Afro-Cuban, Indian, and Af ...

Mars Williams Marc Charles "Mars" Williams (May 29, 1955 – November 20, 2023) was an American jazz and rock saxophonist. He was a member of the American new wave band The Waitresses from 1980 to 1983, and a member of the British post-punk band The Psyched ...

) from Chicago. The whole band plays six Vandermark compositions, the remaining five tracks are short improvisations: one for each of the trios and three duos.

Reception

The Penguin Guide to Jazz ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' is a reference work containing an encyclopedic directory of jazz recordings on CD which were (at the time of publication) currently available in Europe or the United States. The first nine editions were compiled b ...

'' describes the album as "monumental" and states "The dedications to Mingus, Andrew Hill,

Ornette Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman (March 9, 1930 – June 11, 2015) was an American jazz saxophonist, trumpeter, violinist, and composer. He is best known as a principal founder of the free jazz genre, a term derived from his 1960 album '' Free Ja ...

Cherry A cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus ''Prunus'', and is a fleshy drupe (stone fruit). Commercial cherries are obtained from cultivars of several species, such as the sweet '' Prunus avium'' and the sour '' Prunus cerasus''. The na ...

and Ayler are marvellous, but so is the revisionist hard-bop-as-raging-fury of their tribute to

Griffin The griffin, griffon, or gryphon (; Classical Latin: ''gryps'' or ''grypus''; Late and Medieval Latin: ''gryphes'', ''grypho'' etc.; Old French: ''griffon'') is a -4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk ...

and Lockjaw." The ''

Down Beat ''DownBeat'' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm that it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1 ...

'' review by Aaron Cohen notes that the album "draws on Ornette Coleman's ''

Free Jazz Free jazz, or free form in the early to mid-1970s, is a style of avant-garde jazz or an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventi ...

'' double-group assembly as a blueprint" and claims "It takes considerable nerve to emulate a legendary configuration, and Barrage Double Trio demonstrates that the experiment should be tried more often."Cohen, Aaron. ''Utility Hitter'' review. ''Down Beat'' June 97: page 54. Print.

Track listing

:''All compositions by Kent Vandermark except as indicated'' # "Over and Both" – 5:15 # "Chicago Trio" (Drake, Kessler, Williams) – 2:39 # "Agamemnon Sleeps" – 15:46 # "Bass Duo" (Kessler, McBride) – 3:14 # "Turn Your Head" – 4:49 # "Tenor Duo" (Williams, Vandermark) – 1:56 # "There Is No Reason" – 8:51 # "Drum Duo" (McBride, Newton) – 3:31 # "East River Suite" – 12:40 # "Boston Trio" (McBride, Newton, Vandermark) – 2:19 # "Polarity" – 6:12

Personnel

*Nate McBride –

acoustic bass The acoustic bass guitar (sometimes shortened to acoustic bass or initialized ABG) is a bass instrument with a hollow wooden body similar to, though usually larger than, a steel-string acoustic guitar. Like the traditional electric bass guitar an ...

electric bass The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an electric but with a longer neck and scale leng ...

–

trap set A drum kit or drum set (also known as a trap set, or simply drums in popular music and jazz contexts) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and sometimes other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The drummer typ ...

hand drums A hand drum is any type of drum that is typically played with the bare hand rather than a stick, mallet, hammer, or other type of beater. Types The following descriptions allude to traditional versions of the drums. Modern synthetic versions are ...

*Curt Newton – trap set,

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

–

tenor saxophone The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B (whi ...

, B-flat clarinet,

bass clarinet The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common Soprano clarinet, soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B (meaning it is a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds as B), but it plays no ...

– acoustic bass *

– tenor saxophone,

alto saxophone The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones were invented by Belgians, Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in the 1840s and patented in 1846. The alto saxophone is pitched in the key of E♭ ( ...

soprano saxophone The soprano saxophone is a small, high-pitched member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments invented in the 1840s by Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax. Built in B♭ an octave above the tenor saxophone (or rarely, slightly small ...

, B-flat clarinet

References

{{Authority control 1996 albums Ken Vandermark albums