Creative Orchestra Music - Chicago 2001 by Scott Rosenberg - jazzreview.com

22 Sep

Creative Orchestra Music - Chicago 2001 by Scott Rosenberg

Written by Glenn Astarita
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No doubt, Scott Rosenberg is an extremely adventurous Chicago, Il., based multi-reedman/composer. Having studied with modern jazz luminary Anthony Braxton, the artist’s creative spark, at times owes to some of Braxton’s methodologies. Coincidentally, or perhaps by design, Rosenberg’s use of the Creative Orchestra Music moniker references Braxton’s 1976 large ensemble recording of the same name.

The orchestra features twenty-six musicians, featuring notable jazz-improvisers, trombonist Jeb Bishop and bassist Jason Roebke along with other hornists, a strings section, percussionists and keyboard performers. Rosenberg conducts these charts that are seemingly designed with no beginning or tangible endpoints. It’s sort of an evolutionary process, asymmetrically constructed upon radical, classical stylizations, improvisation, and interleaving arrangements. No one in particular takes center stage, amid various flurries and embedded dialogues. Rosenberg’s compositions are jagged in scope, but when viewed upon as a whole, the music features subtle variations, hues, and inharmonious interludes. Vocalist Carol Genetti adds some background vocals in spots, but for the most part, Rosenberg’s brainchild might simply intimate that the best is yet to come.