Jacob Garchik: Assembly
Yestereve Records

In naming his album Assembly and giving its tracks titles such as “Collage,” “Pastiche,” and “Bricolage,” trombonist Jacob Garchik leaves little doubt about the methodology adopted for his latest opus. Assembly isn't a collection of real-time performances, even if in one sense it originated out of them; more precisely, it's a meticulously created collage-like construction. It isn't the first time, by the way, Garchik's done something unusual. An earlier release riffed on gospel (The Heavens: The Atheist Gospel Trombone Album, 2012) and another explored the hard-to-picture idea of rhythm section-less big bands (Clear Line, 2020). Given such forays, it hardly surprises that such an intrepid sensibility would find the creative possibilities of a cut-and-paste aesthetic attractive. The recording repeatedly shows Garchik isn't afraid to deviate from jazz's focus on undoctored live performance to a mediated form where elements are assembled into fabricated ensemble expressions.

The groundwork for the new project was laid in early 2021 when Garchik, like many in pandemic-imposed limbo and eager to keep creating, gathered colleagues in a studio fitted with isolation booths to enable live recording. Joined by soprano saxophonist Sam Newsome, pianist Jacob Sacks, bassist Thomas Morgan, and drummer Dan Weiss, the quintet blew through blues and standards, their performances emboldened by the sheer joy of playing together. After the studio date, Garchik spent months cutting, pasting, reordering, and reworking the material, which was then followed by another group session that involved recording the pieces and collages originating from their own playing and sometimes layering parts overtop.

If the strategy sounds unusual, the material that resulted is too, though it's also compellingly musical. A fragile balance is achieved between live performance and digital reconstruction, two poles that while antithetical here mesh surprisingly well. Illustrative of the approach, “Bricolage” involved Garchik selecting bass parts from three hours of the studio material and creating loops for Newsome to improvise over. What could easily pass for spontaneous, real-time performance obviously isn't. Also exemplifying the cut-and-paste idea, for “Idee Fixe” Garchik lifted a section from a Sacks solo where the pianist was replicating a broken record and looped the phrase to create a Glass-like swirl that the ensemble then riffs off of to dizzying effect.

Unusual also is the opening “Collage” for overlaying two tracks in different tempos. The ear switches back and forth between the two, one section surfacing slowly in dirge-like waves, the slightly fainter other finding the musicians blowing freely and faster. Yet while there is a distinct separation between the parts, they nonetheless cohere into a restless mass where some elements are more prominent in the mix than others. Overdubbing's taken to an extreme for “Homage” (apparently loosely based on McCoy Tyner's “Contemplation”) in featuring four trombones, two saxes, four pianos, four basses, and three drummers. However overloaded that appears on paper, in practice the material simply sounds like the work of an expanded ensemble unit as it delivers its bluesy, lumbering wail. Yes, it's dense, but it's hardly lacking in musicality or clarity.

“Pastiche” lunges from the gate with bebop-driven fury before a rapid detour into slower swing sees Garchik leading the charge with a far-ranging solo exploration. As if designed to remind us of the concept in play, the tune accelerates in its last minute to a cartoon-like tempo, the originating performance clearly sped up by Garchik. By the time the penultimate “Impromptu” arrives, it's impossible to know whether the dueling cross-currents by the trombonist and saxophonist were executed together or assembled later.

May 2022