Unauthorized Caprices

Avant-garde jazz with world (Asian) and Classical influences. Saxophonist-composer Larry Ochs joined by drums and electronics, plus (on some tracks) guitar, trumpet, or cello. Add to this the voice of Korean avant-garde performance artist Dohee Lee. This is tough going, recommended only for the most adventurous. There’s no doubt about the originality, skill & vision of these compositions, but they don’t make for pleasant radio listening.

No FCC issues (unless they’re in Korean)

1. Opens with honking sax & someone dropping a silverware drawer. Singer wails and warbles, sounding angry. Sax plays quick bursts of notes with biting tone. Add furious drumming, a bit of fluttering trumpet, someone turning electronics knobs. Four minutes into this, you’ve definitely got the idea, but there’s ten minutes still to come. (14:02)

2. Sax, trumpet, gtr, vox, drums all do their thing simultaneously. It’s a suite: at 4 min, it fades to silence, drums & cello start something new; at 8 min, sax makes duck sounds & vocalist does something very strange; at 11 min, bluesy ballad on trumpet; etc. (19:45)

3. Just sax & vox. She sounds like being strangled, then like a chipmunk. Painful. (7:11)

4. Just drums, sax & vox. Singing may be in parseltongue. The drumming is good. Toward the end, sax changes timbre into something like squawking geese. (12:17)

5. The most melodic and accessible track—by a mile. A classical sounding cello plays extended melodies, with sax & voice punctuating in short bursts. Quite slow, it’s a little like chamber music. Could be used in an adventurous jazz set or as avant-garde Classical. (7:30)