Saxophonist-composer-improvisor Tim Berne has been on the scene since the late 1970s. Here it is, a quarter of the way into century 21, and he’s still at it. Berne’s latest, featuring him in a trio lineup with guitarist Gregg Belisle-Chi and drummer Tom Rainey, is the LP Yikes (limited to 500 copies) and its 2CD expansion Yikes Too, both out now, co-released by Berne’s long-running label Screwgun and Out of Your Head Records. The 2CD offers the full studio set on disc one and a live set from March 2024 at Seattle’s Royal Room on disc two. Purchase of the six-song LP gets the buyer a download of everything on the 2CD.
Tim Berne emerged as a recording musician in a period when avant-garde jazz had been essentially abandoned by the major record companies. His first album, The Five Year Plan, came out in 1979 on his own label, not Screwgun, but Empire. A few more self-released LPs followed before he was picked up by Soul Note, a vastly important enterprise (alongside Black Saint) in the period prior to the major label’s rekindled interest in the avant-garde. And when the big companies came looking, it was Columbia that grabbed Berne for a pair of records, Fulton Street Maul in 1987 and Sanctified Dreams the next year.
As is the jazz norm, Berne has recorded a whole lot, and he’s also cut a bunch of sessions with guitarists. There’s Bill Frisell, Nels Cline, Ryan Ferreira, Samo Šalamon, David Torn, most prominently Marc Ducret, and most recently Gregg Belisle-Chi. This trio with Belisle-Chi and Tom Rainey deepens Berne’s long association with the drummer as their prior output includes another trio, Big Satan, with guitarist Ducret.
Except for the track “Julius Hemphill” (by saxophonist Hemphill, a jazz great crucial to Berne’s development as a musician), all the compositions here are Berne’s, a reality that solidifies him as Yikes Too’s leader, though as the record’s cover makes plain, the leadership designation is nominal. Given Berne’s preference for naming working bands (a sample: Big Satan, Bloodcount, Broken Shadows, Caos Totale, Hard Cell, Miniature, Paraphrase, Science Friction, Snakeoil), his comfort with ensemble collectivity is clear and reinforces his extension of Fusion methods into contemporary avant jazz.
Belisle-Chi favors a raw sound that largely springs out of the rock tradition (contrasting with the clean tones that long defined jazz guitar), and so the Fusion connection is strengthened, although it should be emphasized that the music that shapes Yikes Too avoids R&B-rock grooves and is instead appropriately characterized as landing in a post-Free search mode.
There’s also a clear discipline, deriving in part from the togetherness of working bands, that fortifies the improvisationally abstract (with melodic interjections from Berne and Belisle-Chi) without ever meandering. Those who delight in sparks-flying skronk will relish the live material, which sustains some wonderfully wooly passages. The studio material isn’t more reserved but is simply not as harried as the performance tracks, with the exception of disc one’s closer “Sorry Variations.”
The studio and live discs have four tracks in common, “Bat Channel,” “Oddly Enough,” “Guitar Star,” and “Trauma,” offering contrasts in execution across the ample running time of the full program, but with ten pieces that are standalone, either studio or live. The heightened levels of communication heard across the set are a source of inspiration during difficult times. With Yikes Too, Berne, Belisle-Chi, and Rainey have produced an admirable and often spectacular achievement.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
