CYLINDER by Shelton-Johnston-Mezzacappa-Nordeson

Released in 2011 on Clean Feed Records.

ARAM SHELTON - ALTO SAXOPHONE, Bb CLARINET, BASS CLARINET
DARREN JOHNSTON - TRUMPET
LISA MEZZACAPPA - ACOUSTIC BASS
KJELL NORDESON - DRUMS, PERCUSSION

Originally hailing from Stockholm, Florida, Staten Island and Ontario, Canada, the San Francisco musicians who make up the cooperative quartet Cylinder traverse stylistic and conceptual frontiers as readily as they do geographic boundaries. Each player has developed a large, impressive and disparate body of work in various improvisation-laced projects and ensembles. Balancing impromptu invention with composed themes, Cylinder has quickly evolved into a particularly evocative communion, marked by pointed dialogues, discursive lines, quicksilver rhythmic shifts and startlingly rich harmonies. While the group’s instrumentation echoes Ornette Coleman’s epochal quartet of the late 1950s, Cylinder carves out a distinctive harmolodic niche defined by the vast range of techniques and ideas that animate four very different players.

Dividing his time between San Francisco and Sweden (where he was born and launched his career with saxophonist Mats Gustafsson), Kjell Nordeson brings raw energy and rigorous intelligence to the trap set, artfully balancing a powerfully propulsive drive with an acute textural sensibility. Lisa Mezzacappa, a one-woman bi-coastal creative tsunami, buoys Cylinder with her fiercely poised lines and thick, thumping notes.

A recent transplant from Chicago, where he was in the thick of the scene, Aram Shelton combines keening lyricism with an expansive sonic palette on both alto sax and clarinet. Trumpeter Darren Johnston, a tremendously resourceful player enriched in recent years by intensive study of Balkan brass traditions, has attained a highly personal sound, pungently soulful, brightly gleaming and full of mischief. Far more than the sum of its considerable parts, Cylinder contains the roiling energy generated by the quartet’s complex interactions, a pleasingly combustible blend as likely to coalesce into ruggedly lyrical passages as to boil over.

by Andrew Gilbert
January 2011
Berkeley, CA

Tracklist

1.	The Ear That Was Sold To a Fish (Johnston)	9:39

2.	Sung by Dogs (Nordeson)	5:32

3.	The Deep Disciplines (Mezzacappa)	4:03

4.	Crossings (Shelton)	6:39

5.	Shells (Nordeson)	2:44

6.	Four Thoughts (Shelton)	6:38

7.	Skipped Rocks (Shelton)	6:01

8.	Sink Town (Johnston)	4:37

9.	Earthworm (Mezzacappa)	7:00

Credits

released January 1, 2011

Compositions by: Johnston 1 and 8; Mezzacappa 3 and 9; Nordeson 2 and 5; Shelton 4, 6 and 7.
All compositions ©2011.

Recorded by Eli Crews at New, Improved Recording, Oakland CA.
Mixed by Aram Shelton & Cylinder
Mastered by Myles Boisen at Headless Buddha Mastering Lab.

License