Balance Point Acoustics : Damon Smith

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Featured CD:

Firestorm is an intense and musically assaultive release of killer, balls-out free jazz that will appeal to those who long for the most bombasic works of Broetzmann, Ayler, Takayanagi and Cecil Taylor! This release reveals many shades of intensity and mood while remaining frenzied and inventive at all times. Featuring Taylor alumni Marco Eneidi (alto), Marc Edwards (drums), Lisle Ellis (bass), Elliott Levin (tenor), Sun Ra Arkestra legend Marshall Allen (alto), bassist Damon Smith and manic Austrian reedist Mario Rechtern, Firestorm is a delerious concoction of new energy music that pushes beyond the stratosphere of sound!

You can send a paypal for $15 pp to damon@balancepointacoustics.com If you would like one. Buy This CD

A few copies of "Healing Force" are available You can send a paypal for $15 pp to damon@balancepointacoustics.com If you would like one.

Vinny Golia-reeds
Aurora Josephson-voice
Henry Kaiser-guitar
Mike Keneally-piano, guitar and voice
Joe Morris-guitar and double bass
Damon Smith-double bass
Weasel Walter-drums

Seven major figures from the art-punk, free-jazz, brutal prog, improvisational and modern jazz world come together for a ROCKING tribute to the unfairly ignored, misunderstood and vilified late period works of Albert Ayler. These late period songs have always seemed to me like they may have been some of the most personally spritually resonant for Ayler, but the musicians and the culture of the late 1960s were possibly not able to successfully translate and perform his concept of spirituality, free jazz, boogaloo, nursery rhythms, marching bands, blues and r'n'b, and certainly the free-jazz following public was not ready to accept it. Now, 40 years and many stylistic mash-ups later, perhaps these works can be better enjoyed.

“Albert Ayler's later works (Love Cry, New Grass and Music is the Healing Force of the Universe) seem to be generally reviled. Through meditations, dreams, and visions, the players on this project were given the message to once again attempt to send the people of earth a message of love, peace, and spiritual understanding. We selected a representative set of tunes for this material and essentially let it play itself through us. We hope you will be as surprised as we still are by the results of this invocational experiment. We hope you will like this record.”
- Henry Kaiser, producer and guitarist Buy This CD

Limited copies of the "Noisy People" dvd are available here. It is a Film by Tim Perkis featuing Damon Smith and other Bay Area Musicians. Includes footage of Gratkowski/Bryerton/Smith and Wolfgang Fuchs' Six Fuchs Project. Buy This CD

Improvised music form Oakland and Tel Aviv from the Jerusalem based Kadima Label.
Aurora Josephson - voice
Ariel Shibolet - soprano saxophone
Jen Baker - trombone
Scott R. Looney - piano
Damon Smith - double bass Buy This CD

"Ghetto Caylpso" Peter Kowald/Marco Eneidi/Damon Smith/Spirit out now on NOTTWO records. Buy This CD

New from Nuscope Records: Biggi Vinkeloe, alto saxophone, flute; Damon Smith, double-bass; Kjell Nordeson, drums, vibraphone Buy This CD

Forthcoming CD's

BPA 013 "Pepper Spray" Ariel Shibolet/Jen Baker/Damon Smith/Jerome Bryerton

Bertram Turetzky/Damon Smith ThoughtBeetle

"Ghetto Calypso"
Players: Eneidi / Kowald / Smith / Spiri
Reviewed by: Derek Taylor, Bagatellen
Posthumous Peter Kowald releases keep coming down the pike and this one looks very promising on paper. The first three surnames on the roll call require no introduction to regular Bags readers. The identity and credentials of Spirit are probably another matter. Patterning a sparse style that draws on both New Thing and European Improv customs, his light pattering touch sometimes feels a bit flimsy and transparent, particularly during the ensemble’s higher density moments. Fortunately, in a group like this one with two strong-willed bassists vying and colluding, it’s a strategy that complements rather than hinders. His brief solo drum foray “Obo” suggests time spent shedding to the sounds of Don Moye and Denis Charles, and like both he’s prone to gruff vocal commentary in conjunction with his stick play. Pale shades of John Stevens also arise in the pointillist side of Spirit’s approach, though I’m not completely sold on his cachet as a contender.

Taped in the spring of 2000 at the tail end of Kowald’s historic 3-month U.S. tour tour, the disc comprises 17 studio tracks, most hovering in the two to four-minute range, that cycle by quickly. In addition to a generous array of full-quartet cuts there are also a handful of pared down improvisations. They vary from the busy duet “Cracked Mirrors…” that recalls Smith and Kowald’s seminal meeting on Balance Point Acoustics, to interstitial pieces like “Sufi Prayer,” a disappointing fragment that ends up little more than Eneidi making raspy percussive sounds through his mouthpiece. Longer excursions like the title track and “Pull, Push, Jump (Up)” work better and yield outcomes that are more memorable. There’s a terrific segment during “New Music Pygmies” where saxophone keypads, bass strings and cymbals mimic the delicate pitches of a Mbuti mbira choir. “The Unforeseen is What is Beautiful” unfolds as six-minute audio slideshow for extended bass techniques, Eneidi adding pursed reed percussion and Spirit mixing whorled colors with sticks and cymbals.

Eneidi’s alto is as raw and recalcitrant as ever throughout the set, ululating in rhythmic vertical geysers and clocking accelerated speeds. Jimmy Lyons’ vernacular still weighs heavy in his horn speech. On pieces like the choppy “Black Dots” tightly fluttering phrases harden swiftly into piercing multiphonics. Clear studio sound captures both Smith and Kowald beautifully and the two cleanly divide into stereo channels to aid in identification. Their elastic give and take and parallel pizzicato lines on the closing “Easinesses Found” draw on a deep rapport and together they make formidable harmonic union. There’s a lot of strong music here, but the sum still seems curiously less than the parts. It’s more like a patchwork of outtakes strung together into the semblance of a program and lacks an overarching album feel as a result. Reservations aside, there’s still enough to recommend the disc. At the very least, it’s a welcome chance for one more visit with the dearly departed Kowald.

~ Derek Taylor