PEK Solo – A Quartet of PEKS
Fixed Intentions
for the Saxophone Family
Excerpt from Darren Bergstein Review
“… There is a suite-like structure here that finds PEK alternating quieter introspection with full-on interstellar overdrive; later sections find him playing a series of speedy, cascading vamps that send trembles out of the speaker cones and down your spine. Varying shades of tone, hue, and cry are splayed out in widening arcs, only to be finally corralled and parsed as we await the next motif with bated breath, PEK’s ‘quartet’ of respirations igniting the imagination with nothing less than awe.…”
Darren Bergstein, Downtown Music Gallery
The sixth PEK Solo effort of 2020 in Boston-based improviser and composer David Peck’s series, this album is a followup to his Clarinet Family album earlier in the year, here creating a virtual symphony of saxophones by layering his composition in the studio through four separate recordings, working in the vein of Rova Sax Quartet or the World Sax Quartet.
Squidco Staff
Excerpt From Liner Notes by PEK
“… This session, Fixed Intentions for the Saxophone Family, is a follow up to last month’s Schematic Abstractions for the Clarinet Family. The general approach here at Evil Clown is to leverage the huge arsenal of instruments and roster of musicians to create a huge variety of music with either very broad or very focused sound pallets with the goal of creating a great deal of unique improvised music with varied sonorities. These two albums focus all of the sounds down to a single sonority set, with all of the common members of the two instrument families played by me in 4 overdubbed tracks.…”
Fixed Intentions for the Saxophone Family:
PEK Solo, A Quartet of PEKs
Evil Clown Headquarters, Waltham MA – September 7, 2020
1) Fixed Intentions for the Saxophone Family – 59:28
PEK – Saxophones (sopranino, soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, bass)
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Darren Bergstein Review
PEK SOLO / A QUARTET OF PEKS Fixed Intentions for the Saxophone Family (Evil Clown 9253, USA) Perhaps isolationism is something of an inspirational motivator for Mr. Dave PEK. Or maybe it’s functioning as an auditory aphrodisiac of sorts? Either way, the man’s dogged work ethic and recorded catalog shows no signs of slowing down and being left to his own devices has apparently had a truly demonstrative effect. On yet another marathon session, the results of which inform this hour-plus entreé, PEK’s declamatory saxophone symphonies set both the mind and ear on ever-soaring higher flights of spiritualistic expression, footloose and fancy-free. PEK has described his approach to his horn playing as more cerebral rather than emotional in nature, but these overdubbed striations of breath and bluster don’t glibly achieve lift-off just from the ‘ol think tank. Like forebears Coltrane, McPhee, and other saxophonists to whom the act of blowing becomes heavenly genuflection, PEK’s categorization of his own playing as such does it something of a disservice. There might be a calculated modus operandi at play throughout, a sense and sensibility coloring his navigation through such seemingly impenetrable improvisational vectors, but the fact that these expansive, magma-hot soundflows never degenerate into cacophonic noteplay speaks volumes about the artist’s fleet control and smart, logical progressions. There is a suite-like structure here that finds PEK alternating quieter introspection with full-on interstellar overdrive; later sections find him playing a series of speedy, cascading vamps that send trembles out of the speaker cones and down your spine. Varying shades of tone, hue, and cry are splayed out in widening arcs, only to be finally corralled and parsed as we await the next motif with bated breath, PEK’s ‘quartet’ of respirations igniting the imagination with nothing less than awe.
Darren Bergstein, Downtown Music Gallery
Liner Notes by PEK
Every once in a while, there is a break in the crazy schedule here at Evil Clown and I have some time to do a solo album. Our grand olde pal, the Corona Virus has provided such a break in spades…. At the beginning of the year, it appeared that the year would be our busiest yet… We did a bunch of albums in January, February and the first weeks of March, and then I was forced to cancel a bunch of wonderful performances scheduled for the months that followed. So, I caught up all my old business: web site, social media, distribution, and the other non-musical activity required to drive the enterprise. Then I took a month off… my biggest rest since I started up in 2015 after my long hiatus. In mid-May I started up again, conceiving some new means of producing some of the enormous output normally achieved by Evil Clown.
This is the sixth PEK Solo effort of 2020. There probably would be more, except I spent nearly two months on a massive studio construction, a structurally complex work involving many of my instruments, overdubbing and computer sound processing. I am super happy with Some Truths are Known – a four hour composition in 3 eighty minute movements for myself on 110 instruments… then I recorded The Strange Theory of Light & Matter, a much simpler session for 4 PEKs each playing through the entire duration on a bunch of different horns. Next was Pursuing the Ideal Limit of Inquiry for a single PEK on tenor sax alone… For Schematic Abstractions, I followed up on the quartet idea (from The Strange Theory of Light and Matter), but this time using a focused sonority set comprised of only the clarinets…
Jazz and improvisation have a long history of saxophone quartets. In fact, in the 80s, before I moved to from California to Boston to study with George Garzone at Berklee, I played the baritone sax parts for several years in the ragtime sax quartet lead by my long-time private teacher Kurt Heisig. This was good experience but was by far the most normal music I have ever performed. I always was a big fan of the Rova Sax Quartet and the World Sax Quartet among others who pushed the boundaries of the traditional approaches to sax quartet. In the last 5 1/2 years since the Evil Clown reboot, one of the ensembles has been Turbulence, which is generally comprised of horn players although some sets include the drums of Yuri Zbitnov. A great recent horns-only Turbulence set is Upheaval from 2019. This music is of course completely improvised and generally does not have a dominant jazz component, but we have recorded and released many performances.
This session, Fixed Intentions for the Saxophone Family, is a follow up to last month’s Schematic Abstractions for the Clarinet Family. The general approach here at Evil Clown is to leverage the huge arsenal of instruments and roster of musicians to create a huge variety of music with either very broad or very focused sound pallets with the goal of creating a great deal of unique improvised music with varied sonorities. These two albums focus all of the sounds down to a single sonority set, with all of the common members of the two instrument families played by me in 4 overdubbed tracks.
Until the stupid virus is over and more normal interactions are possible with other people, Evil Clown will continue to create new works using different methods which don’t involve many other players: PEK Solo projects, and a very select number of Leap of Faith or Metal Chaos Ensemble sets involving no more than 3 people. The PEK Solos with fall into 3 categories: Large Studio Construction/Compositions for lots of overdubbing PEKs on many instruments, small ensembles of PEKs like this quartet, and solos like Pursuing the Ideal Limit of Inquiry for unaccompanied single instruments (either full length, or several shorter pieces on different horns)…
As usual, the chaos of the universe throws problems which require our attention. Expression must be expressed. Music must be made. The chaos of the universe demands it.
PEK – 9/8/2020
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