Jazz Journal Review
JASON STEIN SOLO In Exchange for a Process
Leo Records 2009

I'm very fond of the bass clarinet. In fact I bought one a year ago and found I could produce some tolerably pleasant sounds from the lower register without difficulty though the upper register is proving more challenging. Omer Simeon with Jelly Roll Morton introduced the instrument to recorded jazz in 1926 and from the mid-30s onwards Harry Carney with Ellington used it from time to time. Quarter of a century later it was Eric Dolphy who demonstrated extraordinary new possibilities for the instrument and here Jason Stein has taken Dolphy's approach as a starting point from which to explore the widest possible range of sounds a bass clarinet can be persuaded to produce. In developing Dolphy's approximations of speech he's also in a tradition of which Rex Stewart was a dominant pioneer.

Stein doesn't double on any other instrument (not even on another kind of clarinet) and works with Chicago groups playing in a variety of styles. I'm impressed by his virtuosity and his boldness in presenting himself alone. He proves that the instrument can whisper and shriek, bark and growl, plead and harangue and produce effects you'd be more likely to come across when searching for a station on the radio. He can produce two notes at once and create interplay between lower and extreme upper registers which must have taken hours to perfect. Yet he eschews the melodiousness of Carney and only occasionally approaches the rhythmic panache which characterised so much of Dolphy's use of the instrument. He's a master of sound effects, many of them novel, and I would recommend te set to those interested in the exploration of the avant-garde possibilities presented by the bass clarinet.

-Graham Colombe, Jazz Journal December 2009