Orka

1. Tu-Vas {04:42}
2. Leslie's Plumbing {3:37}
3. Vindaloo {7:04}
4. Orka {8:18}
5. Partched {2:23}
6. The Chase {3:19}
7. Rent-A-Bird {2:49}
8. Difftones {2:56}
9. Styro Gyro {2:56}
10. Orka Pook {7:06}
11. Not Yet {4:22}
12. LampiGong {2:04}

"Significant developments in the 1960s and 1970s in the role and capabilities of the trumpet are rare, contrasting sharply with the changes affecting, for example, the saxophone and the instruments of the rhythm section", wrote Clifford Bevan in his article on the history of the jazz trumpet in "The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz", and he can hardly be contradicted. Considering the impact of innovators such as Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders, Cecil Taylor, Paul Bley, Gary Peacock, David Izenzon, Sunny Murray, Milford Graves on a whole generation of saxophonists, pianists, bassists and drummers, the lasting influence of creative trumpeters of the calibre of Bill Dixon, Don Cherry, Don Ellis, Leo Smith, Baikida Carroll and Lesler Bowie has been deplorably marginal.
The avantgarde trumpetist remains an elusive species, and for the young trumpet players of the Nineties, the premier role models still seem to be Clifford Brown, Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard - and, if they should happen to be slightly more open Eric Truffazs of today, and all the other young virtuosos hyped by the major record companies as the alleged "future of the trumpet", one might well be tempted to conclude as Clifford Bevan did "After the unprecedented achievements of jazz trumpeters in mainstream and bop styles, the trumpet seems to have reached a halt in its development". But wait a minute. And listen to Rajesh Mehta.
There is precious little in Mehta's playing on this CD to remind one of Clifford Brown and Freddie Hubbard. And a lot to prove that he has taken his teacher Anthony Braxton's advice to heart that to be true to the tradition of creative music means not to regurgitate yesterday's revolutions, but to develop your own vocabulary, to formulate your own language. For the Indian-born, currently Amsterdam-based American Mehta has expanded the timbral and textural palette of the trumpet dramatically, by opening up a whole cosmos of unheard-of tone colours, microtonal possibilities and subtly shaded noises Mehta achieves this not only by unorthodox playing techniques and by incorporating the neglected bass trumpet, but also by making use of the 'hybrid trumpet', a self-designed instrument in which up to three trumpets (or cornets) are connected by plastic tubing.
The sonic kaleidoscope of Mehta's extended instruments, his large collection of mutes and his vocabulary of extended techniques (including the use of swinging tubes and water-bowls) are well illustrated by the three solo tracks on this disc. I don't know of many other trumpeters daring and confident enough to present solo recitals (Tomasz Stanko and Toshinon Kondo come to mind), and these recordings show that Mehta is singularly well-equipped for such a formidable task.
I think Anthony Braxton would agree that Rajesh Mehta has deserved the title "restructuralist" a musician who has thoroughly researched, deconstructed and redefined the potential of his instrument Learning about Mehta's eventful vita - born in Calcutta, raised in New Jersey, an engineering degree at Boston's MIT, where his first musical mentor, trumpetist/composer Mark Harvey, encouraged him towards composition studies with Braxton at Mills College in Oakland California, a member of Amsterdam's lively multicultural music scene since 1992 - one might well feel confirmed in the hypothesis that it's not the graduates of today's jazz schools, but primarily musicians of such multifarious (and multi-cultural) experiences that have the creative potential to renew the language of improvised music.
The rhythmic patterns of "Orka" are, furthermore, a hint that Mehta is not only familiar with the dialects of new jazz, improvised music and contemporary composition, but has also researched the rhythm cycles of traditional Indian music, a facet of his musical thinking more prominent in pieces he has created for his two Amsterdam-based ensembles, the "Rajesh Mehta Collective 3+" and the "Collective 9").
Developing your own language - or "finding your own voice", as the expression goes - is the one categorical imperative of improvised music. Finding a way to communicate your findings with other players is the other. Paul Lovens, long considered one of the most original and sensitive percussionists of our times, makes an ideal partner for Mehta's trumpet research program. There is little of the traditional antiphony of melody and percussion instruments in their duets. Since Mehta's techniques offer a wealth of percussive and unpitched sounds and Lovens' imagination comes up with a multitude of timbral and melodic configurations on his "selected and unselected drums and cymbals", such traditional distinctions and predefined roles are invariably blurred in their interactive process.
A halt in the trumpet's development? Clifford Bevan concludes his New Grove article as follows "Perhaps the emergence of musicians such as Wynton Marsalis, classically trained and equally at home performing a trumpet concerto with a symphony orchestra or working with Art Blakey or Herbie Hancock, may give some clue as to the part to be played by a straight, clear tone, faultless technique, and lively imagination." Tone and technique, OK, we'll grant Marsalis that, but objection: the imagination belongs to players like Rajesh Mehta. And watch out Mehta has just added a slide trumpet to his acoustic arsenal. There's more to come, much more.

"[...] Orka shows him to be one of the most intriguing exponents of the instrument at work. Not only does he apply extended techniques to the conventional horn; he also explores hybrid trumpet (with extensions), and grants a rare chance to hear the bass trumpet in action. These grittily creative investigations are especially invigorating, with none of the trumpet's showcase flashiness. [...]"

"Mehta [...] aims to do -or help do- for the trumpet what Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders, and Evan Parker have done for the saxophone. He does it on ORKA by eschewing the usual standards of trumpet virtuosity and fashioning a new language and lexicon for the instrument. [...] Orka is an audacious and successful disc. There is a great deal of fascinating music here, and an inventive trumpet player of considerable promise."

**** "[...] Sein schillerndes Universum aus mikrotonalen Verschiebungen, Bill-Dixon-Abstraktionen und Adaptionen indischer Rhythmik weiß der ehemalige Braxton-Schüler mit einer lustvollen, frischen Dynamik in Bewegung zu setzen. Für jemanden wie Paul Lovens, der auf 9 von 12 Stücken mehr als nur mitspielt, ist das ein gefundenes Fressen. Dank seiner unbestechlichen Intuition für dynamische Prozesse (sic!) klinkt er sich behutsam in das Universum Mehtas ein, nur um im richtigen Moment für Unruhe zu sorgen. Bleibt zu hoffen, daß die beiden noch häufiger die Gelegenheit finden, zusammen zu improvisieren."

"[...] Mehta [...] has taken the most direct assault on trumpet hardware yet mounted, however, going beyond his array of mutes to create a "hybrid" trumpet in which three trumpets are joined together by plastic tubing. The results are startling, to say the least, but what is remarkable is not the mere novelty but the breadth of Rajesh's sonic palette and his ability to shift and alternate utterly different trumpet voices, whether suggestive of the instrument's traditional voices or pressing towards near-electronic textures.
On "Orka," the longest of the solo pieces, Mehta uses the hybrid trumpet to create time lags and rhythmic patterns between open and harmon-muted horns in ways that suggest both minimalist composition and traditional Indian music. This is no "demonstration" disc, but whole music in which Mehta has already surmounted the technical challenges that he poses for himself. His inspired duet play with Lovens, another keen sonic explorer, testifies to that. Mehta's play with voice is such that he escapes the unitive "trumpet sound, becoming sonically plural. There are times when the sounds of the two musicians merge in such a way that it becomes difficult to accredit some sounds to one or the other."