Territory Band 6: Collide
CD - Okka Disc, USA - 2007

Plays electronics on all tracks.

Reviews:

Territory Band
Collide
Okka Disk
2007

The Territory Band is Vandermark's large ensemble vehicle (outside of occasionally writing for the Tentet), and surely a group unifying what he's learned from a wide array of projects and influences. In name, it signifies the international nature of the contemporary improvisation climate, its “territory” covering Chicago as well as Norway, Sweden, Germany and England via the diverse locales of the thirteen musicians present. Collide features a long-form suite recorded live at the 2006 Chicago Jazz Fest, a fantasia for orchestra with tenorman Fred Anderson as a principal solo voice.

What struck this writer most is that certain textural combinations work in ways that I was genuinely surprised—Anderson's unfettered solo spot on the second movement gradually fleshed out with Lasse Marhaug's electronic whirrs and thuds, a meeting of improvisational apples and oranges if there ever was one. The ensemble enters with a modal Latin theme equivalent to something Andrew Hill might've put together, a pointillist counter to Fredrik Ljunkvist's ensuing bottom-hugging baritone work.

With passages of boisterous swing as well as extraordinary detail, Collide is certainly a whole that Vandermark and his cohorts can be extremely proud to be part of. As a composer and bandleader, it's probably his finest achievement to date. (www.allaboutjazz.com)

Territory Band 6 with
Fred Anderson
Collide
Okka Disc CD
This explosive outdoor concert, recorded
at Chicago's Millennium Park
on August 24, 2006, sets the keening
tenor sax of Fred Anderson against
Ken Vandermark’s raging 12-piece
mob of improvisers. Although there
are five tracks, composer Vandermark
considers Collide a unified whole, and
the architecture holds together and
makes sense while sheltering a wild
sense of freedom. Anderson is used
sparingly, but that is perhaps just as
well, as he hangs on extra tightly to
his stock yodeling riffs in the tumult.
The timing of his solo entrance, after
ominous thunderheads of ensemble
passages and a long spasm of wild
group improvisation, is a masterpiece
of tension and release. An urgent,
muscular chart for the entire band
follows Anderson’s moment in the
spotlight, pushing the momentum
further and opening the way for a
stack of inspired solos. At the navel of
the piece is a tense episode featuring
Lasse Marhaug’s electronics. A distant
hum, like a janitor vacuuming a bank
carpet at 2 a.m., expands into clouds
of inky distortion and a flapping
sound, like tape slapping off of a reel.
As percussive blats and blips flash
within this inchoate cloud, a heavy
charge begins to build. Suddenly, Jim
Baker’s piano and Paul Lytton’s drums
snap the band into acoustic lucidity
— another dramatic stroke. Anderson
returns near the piece’s climax to
engage Vandermark in a two-tenor
tussle that quickly sucks the remaining
reeds and brass in an eel-like mass.
The fury coalesces into a suitably
declamatory melodic statement, then
erupts in more spasms of coruscating
free jazz. The bottom drops out
as Anderson and Vandermark stroll
and tolling chords back them up. If
you’re not offended by Anderson’s
added-attraction status, there’s a lot
to appreciate here. You can follow the
spiraling particle trails from this highenergy
collision of post-bop big band
jazz and the European avant-garde, or
just enjoy a high-energy outdoor happening,
captured superbly on CD.
Lawrence Cosentino, Signal to Noise Magazine