Topology: Debut of a new project from Ken Vandermark and Joe McPhee

Last weekend’s Umbrella Music Festival drew overflow crowds to hear much remarkable improvisation. (Don't say I didn't warn you.)  But true to the annals of show-business, the festival organizers saved the best for last, with a dynamic combination of pure blowing and smartly written, fervently dispatched writing.

Sunday night’s finale (at the Hungry Brain, site of weekly sets organized by Umbrella Music) saw the debut of a new project and some new/old music. The protean reedist and bandleader Ken Vandermark  presented Topology, a nonet he assembled to play his arrangements of songs written by the multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee. In the 60s and 70s, McPhee’s iconoclastic approach to both performance and composition did more than attract attention; his work led Swiss producer Werner Uehlinger to create the HatHut label specifically to issue McPhee’s work. Vandermark has always named McPhee as a major influence on his own career, and has recorded with him on numerous occasions.

In his onstage remarks, Vandermark didn’t set the bar too high: he suggested that in arranging the music for a nine-piece band in which McPhee would perform, they would be playing the respective roles of Gil Evans and Miles Davis. (As many readers recognize, he was referring to Evans’s work with Davis on such works as Birth of the Cool and later Sketches of Spain – which constitute perhaps the most famous and fruitful pairing of arranger and soloist in the history of jazz.)

That’s a bold claim, and no one expected to hear the textured pastels and gouache that made Evans unique. But with equal audacity, Vandermark pretty much made good on his promise, placing McPhee as well as the other soloists in solid, handsome frames awash in complimentary colors. All told, the program unveiled newly conceived versions of eight compositions from McPhee’s estimable discography, among them the opening “Astral Spirits”; an edgy “Future Retrospective” (from 1982); two songs from the album that gave its name to this group (McPhee’s 1981 disc Topology); and three songs from McPhee’s very first solo saxophone discs, Tenor and Fallen Angel – the graceful “Sweet Dragon,” the dedicatory “Goodbye Tom B,” and the set’s rollicking finale, “Knox.”

On two tunes – “Age” and “Eroc Tinu” – Vandermark used his own bass clarinet in tandem with Dave Rempis’s baritone sax to establish a vigorous, bosky introduction, which quickly became the counter-melody for McPhee’s written theme. Elsewhere, he sectioned off Rempis’s alto with Josh Berman’s cornet, while the other three hornmen – Jeb Bishop on trombone, McPhee on tenor, and Vandermark on clarinet – formed an opposing force. And on a medley of two McPhee ballads – “Pablo” and “Violets For Pia” – the translucent voicings at the top of the chart soon gave way to headstrong spontaneous improvisation by the several horns.

The ace rhythm combo of bassist Kent Kessler and drummer Tim Daisy provided a light and springy undercurrent, bubbling up into busy but restrained solos when called on; meanwhile, vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz ran the gamut from full-metal chording to the ghostly figure that, in a slow diminuendo, haunted the ending of “Sweet Dragon.”

McPhee did indeed perform – on tenor and soprano saxes and flugelhorn – and played with his usual expressive power throughout the set. But just as often, as he blended into the layered, sparkling ensemble writing; in those moments, he seemed to transform from the evening’s guest of honor into a delighted observer, hearing the music as if for the first time.

And in those moments, the achievement of Vandermark, as both arranger and conceptualist, became all the more clear.