Heathen Harvest Review
JASON STEIN SOLO In Exchange for a Process
Leo Records 2009

What jazz performer would be so foolhardy as to undertake a SOLO horn album? There are so many pinnacles to be taken into account: The great swing tenor saxophonist, Coleman Hawkins, released a solo in 1948 called "Picasso", considered to be the first unaccompanied saxophone solo ever recorded, became even more famous for his devastating unaccompanied coda on the 1956 version of "Body And Soul". Anthony Braxton's "For Alto" was out in '68 and caused a huge stir in the jazz community for it's post-modernist approach to solo improvisation. Sonny Rollins cut an album in the 80's called "The Solo Album" consisting of two half-hours of Sonny onstage alone, giving the listener a chance to hear inside the questing, sometimes rambling, mind of a post-bop musician. Those are three of the greatest jazz horn players ever, from different generations, masters of their instruments, whose musical forays into the solo domain created unexpected impacts. And that is what bass clarinetist, Jason Stein, has to contend with on "In Exchange For A Process".

It seems, quite often, that the post-modernist musician's individuality tends to disappear within the techniques and processes used in creating their compositions. Beyond what's been classically taught may lie new and unthought-of realms, however, to create music in search of new sound worlds requires the convention of "style" to be discarded. Ego is obsolete to this process as the artist searches for sounds that have no copyright stamp. Stein's approach on this album is decidedly new wave sounding, using extended horn technique, and for what he's able to achieve, purely soundwise, it's quite astonishing because he has mastered the range of language on this instrument. These 11 tracks seem like miniaturist micro>macro improvisations, the longest track clocks in at 5:40.

Jason Stein has been getting his work released on records since 2006. Born in 1976, he studied with Charles Gayle and Milford Graves and, supposedly, his first teacher was David Murray, another brilliant bass clarinetist. The clarinet family, and particularly the bass clarinet, are very good for producing a wide range of amazing sounds: using a technique called "slap-tonguing" creates a variety of clicking and popping sounds, precise overblowing can create drones, robust low bass sounds, high pitched squeals, etc. Stein's brilliant improvisations can, in another way of listening, be so many different things, at times they are "field recordings", other times he seems to be playing an analog synthesizer, or even two instruments at once, say, a bass & saxophone duet. Often each composition will have multiple sound elements that rise and subside, some to return, others not, but the tracks never seem to meander, there is a sense of purpose to these improvisations. Ironically, as abstract as most of the tracks are, Stein has a rhythmic sense too, and the opening track, "For The Sake Of Edgar Pollard", finds him swinging hard through solos as if a band were really cracking behind him.

This is a remarkable album using a wild range of improvising techniques, surely not one for the beginning jazz listener, but for the jaded, like me, it's a true ear-opener! In exchange for a process Jason Stein had to lose himself and in doing so he has created a unique and lasting work of art.

-Philip Klingler, December 2009