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Perhaps Winogrond is best known as a rock drummer, most notably with Davie Allan & the Arrows, but on his debut solo jazz LP, he sounds like an old master who built his reputation filling in at the Blue Note or the Village Vanguard. Together with Jack Chandler on saxophones and flute and Arlan Schierbaum on piano and echoplex, Winogrond weaves a surreal tapestry of gritty urban jazz with a psychedelic twist. These songs provide the soundtrack to dark back alleys, where Raymond Chandler protagonists step into scenes from William Burroughs without batting an eyelash. Allan and DJ Bonebrake from X appear on the closing “Imhotep,” which merges Hawkwind with Jack Johnson-era Miles Davis into a soaring spacerock jazz continuum.

Review by Chuck Foster


Disaster Amnesiac blog


What do you do when you've played drums in the bands of two very important underground guitarists/band leaders? In the case of David Winogrond, you bravely strike it out on your own and begin an entirely new aspect of your career. Pictures at an Existentialism is the opening salvo in David's next drumming phase, that phase being one of a distinct instrumental/Jazz approach.
Released in 2007 on the L.A.-based Wondercap Records, Pictures is an imaginatively conceived and remarkably played recording, full of great, interactive playing and improvising. For much of the album, Winogrond leads a primarily bass-less trio of drums, woodwinds, sparse electronics, and piano through highly charged, intuitive group interaction. The listener is treated to the sounds of musicians really playing together. As the trio tunes wind their way through several different modes per song, the simpatico between pianist Arlan Schierbaum and Winogrond becomes very clear. Closer listening reveals piano and drums conversing and riffing off of each other for seconds, sometimes even minutes on end. In music this is no mean feat; on tunes like Swans Reflecting Elephants and Dusk in Amber, David and Arlan pull it off wonderfully many times over. (cont)

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