In The Ether

Released Feb 17, 2009

All About Jazz

George Harris

March 2009

 

Drummer David Winogrond is an eclectic type of artist who likes mixing and matching styles, as he showed on his quite creative debut Pictures at an Existentialism with like-minded saxophonist Jack Chandler. On his latest release, In The Ether, the two reunite to front a working unit that displays their wide ranging tastes and directions, spanning from rock to the avant -garde. A number of the tunes, like the opening "Jupiter Jump", "For Sonny", and "Return of the Silver Fleck Yoshimbokwa", jump out at you like an amalgam of Jimi Hendrix and King Crimson, with slashing guitars, stratospheric saxophones and heavy metallic drumming. This is the real guitar hero. At other times, the tunes have a funky Junior Walker back beat with Chandler's thick tenor saxophone mixing with Winogrond's laid down groove on an intriguing "Blue in Green" and "Andalusian Day Trip". An intriguing duet between the two kindred souls on "Solitude," with tom toms buffeting Chandler's tenor sax, evokes images of a late night street musician on Bourbon Street, while the Third Man-ish harpsichord on "Brand New World Symphony" mixes yearning reeds and polyphonies with galloping rhythms. In The Ether is an interesting mix of cerebral and slash - something I am positive will be a fascinating listen for most music aficionado's. 

 

Personnel: David Winogrond: drums; Jack Chandler: sax, flute, keyboards; Michael Campagna: guitar; Dan Weinstein: violin, trombone, tuba; Raffi Dimorian: French horn; Michael C. Ford: spoken word.

 

The Big Takeover #64Chuck Foster
I loved Winogrond’s psychedelic debut solo album, Pictures at an Existentialism, but this is entirely new and different. The addition of Michael Campagna’s bombastic guitar on several tracks transforms the music in to aural onslaughts that waver between Black Flag and Peter Brotzmann’s early recordings. Even standards get a complete overhaul. Miles Davis’ “Blue In Green” sounds like a bad trip in New Orleans, and Duke Ellington’s “Solitude” is transformed into a nightmarish urban soundtrack of dark, rat-infested filthy alleys. In The Ether will confound and irritate jazz purists, but jazz is meant to move forward and explore, not stagnate in its own boring cesspool as the old guard would have it. It’s not your Aunt Mabel’s idea of jazz, that’s for sure.

Excerpt from Horror Garage interview of Chris Ashford by Chuck Foster

HG: I’ve liked everything you’ve done, but I was really blown away by the latest Winogrond album, In the Ether.

Chris Ashford: I think a lot of people will be. He’s kind of riding that line that I’m riding with my label. He’s not perfectly jazz, he’s not perfectly psychedelic rock, he’s not perfectly hard-edged punk rock. He’s kind of a tweener and it’s going to be interesting to see how people take him.

 

HG: One thing I find really interesting about his albums is the production. It’s very different. It’s almost very slick and polished, but also dreamy. It definitely sounds different.

Chris Ashford: You have to hand that to David because I’ve let David do his own records and I just release them. Between him and his engineer and his sax player, Jack, they are the brainstem of how the production is. I let him ride and do his own sound.

 

GAPPLEGATE MUSIC BLOG

March 10, 2009—The intersection of Rock and Jazz has been with us ever since Larry Coryell plugged in with the Gary Burton group back in the mid-‘60s. Since then there have been successes and failures, the latter usually a product of pressures to appeal to the lowest common denominator, but also because of creative misfires or chemistry problems among the musicians involved.

 

Happily, today’s CD has none of those difficulties. Drummer David Winogrond’s “In the Ether” (Wondercap) comes at it from the Rock end. Essentially these are rockers who have embraced the Jazz spectrum. David has influences from both camps—Elvin Jones and Gene Krupa but also Keith Moon and Mitch Mitchell. He finds his own path through the dense underbrush of what has gone before and emerges as a distinctive self. He is joined by reedist Jack Chandler, who ably asserts his musical vision, and guitarist Michael Campagna, who nicely shreds and psychedelisizes himself throughout much of the disk. When these three go at it, the results remind one slightly of the music Ginger Baker, Sonny Sharrock and Peter Brotzmann made a number of years ago. And yet that is only in terms of the basic stance. Winogrond, Chandler and Campagna go their own way here. There are cameo appearances by other fellow travelers as well. All make fitting contributions to the musical whole.

 

“In the Ether” shows a flair for combining freedom and electricity. In the search for viable home-grown energy sources, Winogrond and company can supply a good chunk of it right now! A tip of our cap to Wondercap Records for coming out with good sounds when we most need it.

 

Cadence

Jerome Wilson

Apr-May-Jun 2009

 

There is also some punky thrashing going on in drummer DAVID WINOGROND’s IN THE ETHER (Wondercap 7004). Overall, his set (Jupiter Jump / Blue In Green / Andalusian Day Trip / Lost Transmission from Budapest / For Sonny / Solitude / Andalusian Dog Night / Brand New World Symphony / Return of the Silver Apple Fleck Yoshimbowka / Snakeskin Pillbox Hat / The Longing. 53:23) has a lot more variety with Funky organ, ambient electronics, and swinging Jazz flute coming to the foreground on various tracks and traces of Ellington and Dvorak in the mix.

 

The Daily Wrazz

SKREEK! SKRONK! WARMPH! Uh-oh, here comes the fuzz (Michael Campagna’s six-string sputter) to cuff Jack Chandler for lewd and mischievous use of saxophone, and filet skins-man Winogrond for abusing the earth’s crust. Ether binges on delicious noise (somewhere the jazzier side of Hüsker Dü nods its approval) under such bad-ass titles as “Return of the Silver Apple Fleck Yoshimbokwa” (spoken-word bashed and gashed by an eruption of squidgy space tugs) and “Snakeskin Pillbox Hat,” a boss romp that complements “Jupiter Jump’s” ’50s sex-club foreplay quite nicely. It’s a little rough around the elbows — just the way we like it — but it hits the pit with a greasy wallop and sticks to your ribs for good.

David:

I listened to your new CD and am totally BLOWN by it!  It reminds me of Frank Zappa, Jeff Beck, Billy Cobham, Jan Klemmer, Herbie Mann (amongst others) doing a jam session.  The sax player is really strong, the flute is a really nice touch while the wailing guitar and eclectic drum beats all fit into place perfectly.  Sure, this CD is not for everyone, but I believe that Zappa, Cobham, Klemmer, Mann and Jeff Beck fans will all dig it.  It's a mind transferral kind of thing and superbly done.  I really do dig the hell out of it.  This CD is put together very well and should serve as notice that David Winogrond is a force to be reckoned with.

I can't thank you enough kind Sir for allowing me to experience this masterpiece.  I believe it was the second song that took me to some sixties sound experience where it sounded like a soundtrack from a film from that era.  Of course several songs reminded me of Zappa in his Grand Wazoo phase.  Brilliant, and keep recording, you can't allow your talents to rust.  I wish this was a double CD/album.

Thanks again,

Donrad