Rempis Percussion Quartet
The Rempis Percussion Quartet is a free-improvising whirlwind that draws inspiration from a shared interest in West African and Latin American rhythms, coupled with American funk and free jazz. Using these influences, the band creates spontaneous music that nevertheless maintains a focus on ensemble motion and compositional structures. Led by saxophonist Dave Rempis (The Engines, Ballister, Kuzu, Rempis/Abrams/Ra) the band originally formed for a house party in April 2004, and their performances maintain an unabashedly raucous energy based on relentless grooves and unrestrained blowing, tempered with occasional moments of quiet balladry. With founding members Tim Daisy and Frank Rosaly still in the drum thrones, the band has also featured renowned Norwegian bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten since 2009, a soloist who provides the perfect virtuosic counterpoint and drive to Rempis’ horn playing.
The Disappointment of Parsley
The Disappointment of Parsley
“I have rarely heard a live CD that starts so powerful as this one. After a short intro, the whole band dives in full throttle, no holds barred, full of energy and drive, full of self-confidence and without hesitations, slow-downs or any other deviations: onward and forward, no matter what. The train driver is Dave Rempis, on tenor on this piece, with Anton Hatwich on bass and with the double drums of Tim Daisy and Frank Rosaly. After six minutes Rempis shuts up and leaves his locomotive in the hands of the rhythm section, full speed, onward and forward, and when Rempis re-joins, what started as a boppish tune, now swirls into full swing, with his expressive horn borrowing from tradition in a wild rollercoaster of a free solo, relentlessly, keeping up the powerplay without slacking down, but then yes, it comes to a halt, unavoidably, after eighteen minutes of madness. On the second piece, Rempis switches to alto, for a piece which is the exact opposite of the first one, slow, sensitive and calm, first solo, then joined by arco bass and gently the percussion enters the tune as well. The third piece starts with polyrhythmic drums, for a free form piece, more abstract, totally unpredictable, and it is only after about ten minutes that a steady vamp gets going, giving the tune a more traditional foundation for the music’s development, yet it slows down into a quite kind of intermezzo, with the four musicians softly bouncing off ideas, gently, sensitively, slowly gathering volume, and speed, ending the tune again in a paroxysm of sound, to the general satisfaction of Alchemia’s enthusiastic audience.” -Stef, Free Jazz Blog
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Alto Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone – Dave Rempis
Bass – Anton Hatwich
Percussion – Frank Rosaly, Tim Daisy
Photography – Krzysztof Penarski
Produced by Marek Winiarski
Design – Marek Wajda
Mixed and mastered by Amos Scattergood, Dave Rempis
Recorded live in Kraków at Alchemia, April 6th, 2008.
Mixed and mastered in Chicago December, 2008.
Harvesters
Harvesters
This new album was recorded in March of this year, as The Rempis Percussion Quartet made their debut in France after 15 years of touring almost everywhere else across Europe. At the generous invitation of programmer Antoine de la Ronciere at Le Petit Faucheux in Tours, the band was the test pilot for a collaborative project amongst five venerable venues for improvised music in France. In a tightly packed week-long schedule, the band performed in Tours, Poitiers, Brest, Nantes, and Lyon, while also doing a day of workshops and recording. Not surprisingly they set the room on fire that first night in Tours, energized both by their French debut, as well as by their first meeting in four years due to the pandemic! Barnburner is the only word for those two sets from Le Petit Faucheux. (Translated from French, Petit Faucheux means “little daddy long legs.” The title of this album, Harvesters, is another English word for this close relative of the spider.)
Cochonnerie
Cochonnerie
“By now the foursome are masters at maintaining an arc of tension over such extended improvisation. What’s remarkable is how they sustain the invention without repeating themselves.” -John Sharpe, All About Jazz
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With a band that’s been around for thirteen years, one might reasonably ask with a new recording, what’s new here? Are there now dance beats superimposed on the music? Maybe some electronics? A different instrumentation, or perhaps some special guests? The answer on this recording – the eighth official document of this improvising quartet since it started in 2004 – is a resounding no. It’s the same old stuff – a band fiercely committed to reconciling the constantly evolving ideas that each of its members brings to the table as improvisers.
Sure, you can look at the superficial. Flaten hauls out the electric here for the first time with this band, as an example. That sounds different. But the quartet’s underlying methodology remains the same despite the outward-facing sonic results. The tension of resolving individual ideas and interests requires constant attention, and the intensity and focus for which this quartet’s long-form improvisations are known feed off of that commitment.
Hashing this musical and intellectual dialogue out for over a decade now, the band’s evolution over time is no joke. But those early days of regular work when all four members lived in the same city and could sort it out in a more leisurely manner are long gone. Instead, each one of these musicians travels the world with a myriad of bands, and borrows new perspectives from each one. Interestingly, as each member’s path diverges further, the quartet tours that take place once every year or so provide the backdrop by which to measure those tectonic shifts.
The music on Cochonnerie demonstrates exactly that type of shift, without moving an inch. A band that hasn’t played a gig for over a year convenes in Chicago to get reacquainted over two nights at the start of a two-week North American tour in the fall of 2015. But the idea of having a warm up period flies out the window as these four dive in fearlessly as ever. Whatever the difference in the sonic output may be on this record compared to previous outings, their fundamental commitment towards reconciling individual ideas into a coherent and compelling sound is exactly what continues to fuel the laser-bream focus and relentless energy on display here.
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Dave Rempis – alto/tenor/baritone saxophone
Ingebrigt Håker Flaten – bass
Frank Rosaly – drums
Tim Daisy – drums
Recorded in October 20th, 2015 at Elastic Arts, Chicago.
Recorded, mixed and mastered by Dave Zuchowski.
Design by Johnathan Crawford
Produced by Dave Rempis
Cash and Carry
Cash and Carry
Deep within the music there is a pulse that carries this music, and it is mostly directed by Håker Flaten’s bass. Switching to baritone, the music gets even more quiet, and at the same time more rigorous. As the piece ramps up, the insistence of the music exhausts the piece. -Mark Corroto, All About Jazz
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On August 31st, 2014, The Rempis Percussion Quartet celebrated its tenth year in existence with an increasingly rare hometown concert at Chicago’s venerable Hungry Brain, a bar whose dark, relaxed, and frequently hard-drinking atmosphere helped to define more than a decade of the Chicago improvised music scene. The band had cut its teeth with regular performances at the Brain in the mid-aughts, but sadly, this would be the last time they hit the stage before the bar’s impending closure at the end of 2014. To up the stakes a bit further, that night also marked the end of the 2014 Chicago Jazz Festival. As usual, the multitudes of fans and world class musicians visiting for that event packed in with the Chicago regulars to hear what the local guys might deliver on their home turf. The band didn’t disappoint. The talking ceased immediately as they hit the stage, channeling the significant emotional energy of the evening directly into two sets of fiery music, once again taking the reins as one of the hardest-hitting bands to emerge from the Chicago scene in the past decade. On this document of the night’s festivities, you can hear the group dive in face first, working over every facet of the simple melodies and grooves that form the underlying basis of their extended improvisations, tearing them apart, and reconstructing them in a multitude of new ways. A fitting tribute to the creative life this special place spawned for many, many years.
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Dave Rempis – alto/tenor/baritone saxophone
Ingebrigt Håker Flaten – bass
Tim Daisy – drums
Frank Rosaly – drums
Recorded August 31st, 2014 at the Hungry Brain, Chicago
Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Dave Zuchowski
Design by Johnathan Crawford
Produced by Dave Rempis
Special thanks to Josh Berman, Mike Reed, Dan Morrizo, and Janice White for many wonderful years of Sunday night at the Brain.
(ARd020) The Long Haul
(ARd020) The Long Haul
This live recording from 2011 by the longstanding working band The Rempis Percussion Quartet documents a period of work in between two previous releases – 2010’s Montreal Parade, and 2013’s Phalanx – the first release ever put out on Aerophonic Records! Here we find a band live onstage, and ready to roll for what had increasingly become a rare “hometown” performance after Flaten moved away from Chicago a few years earlier. Situated at the legendary Hideout, a warm Chicago venue that served as a home base every Wednesday night from 2006-2014 for the improvised music scene locally, nationally, and internationally, the band was comfortable, fired up, and ready to go for the occasion. We’re very happy to present this previously undocumented era in the band’s development for the first time.
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Dave Rempis – alto/tenor/bari saxophone
Ingebrigt Håker Flaten – bass
Tim Daisy – drums
Frank Rosaly – drums
Recorded April 13th, 2011
live at The Hideout, Chicago, IL
Recorded and mixed by Dave Zuchowski
Produced by Dave Rempis
Special thanks to Mitch Cocanig, Andrea Jablonski, and the entire Hideout crew.