Cadence Magazine April 2009

There is also some punky thrashing going on in drummer
DAVID WINOGROND’s IN THE ETHER (Wondercap 7004).
Overall, his set (Jupiter Jump / Blue In Green / Andalusian Day
Trip / Lost Transmission from Budapest / For Sonny / Solitude /
Andalusian Dog Night / Brand New World Symphony / Return of
the Silver Apple Fleck Yoshimbowka* / Snakeskin Pillbox Hat / The
Longing. 53:23) has a lot more variety with Funky organ, ambi-
ent electronics, and swinging Jazz flute coming to the foreground
on various tracks and traces of Ellington and Dvorak in the mix.
(Winogrond, d; Jack Chandler, sax, flt, kybd; Michael Campagna, g;
Dan Weinstein, vln, tbn, tba; Raffi Dimoian, Fr hn; Michael C. Ford,
spoken word*.)

The Big Takeover #64

David Winogrond "In The Ether"
I loved Winogrond’s psychedelic debut solo album, Pictures at an Existentialism, but this is entirely new and different. The addition of Michael Campagna’s bombastic guitar on several tracks transforms the music in to aural onslaughts that waver between Black Flag and Peter Brotzmann’s early recordings. Even standards get a complete overhaul. Miles Davis’ “Blue In Green” sounds like a bad trip in New Orleans, and Duke Ellington’s “Solitude” is transformed into a nightmarish urban soundtrack of dark, rat-infested filthy alleys. In The Ether will confound and irritate jazz purists, but jazz is meant to move forward and explore, not stagnate in its own boring cesspool as the old guard would have it. It’s not your Aunt Mabel’s idea of jazz, that’s for sure.

Chuck Foster

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