BLOODCOUNT (TIM BERNE'S BLOODCOUNT)

Saxophonist Berne created Bloodcount in 1993 as a means of deconstructing the jazz combo–to “de-emphasize the usual soloistic approach and create more of a chamber-music approach to improvisation,” he said at the time–and of reconstructing the balance between structure and freedom. The first concept is hardly a new one: Lennie Tristano fooled around with it in the 40s, Ornette Coleman and Bill Evans made strikingly different uses of it in the 50s, and it became a hallmark of Ronald Shannon Jackson’s bands in the 80s. But Berne employs it to such strong effect–creating complex textures not with volume but with layers of information–that his quartet can sound like a group three times its size. Berne plays a virile, mercurial alto, while his baritone work is both agile and voluptuous, and he finds an equal partner in the excitingly garrulous tenor of Chris Speed; bassist Michael Formanek combines with drummer Jim read more...