Straight Horning: Tony Malaby at Constellation

Due to computer error we're running a little late this week...... a week late.
The trio of Tony Malaby (ts/ss), JT Bates (d) and Anthony Cox (d) were at Constellation on Saturday night (7th) and it was during the set break that I decided to scribble (well, type on the phone) some notes for a straight horning post.

While I've been to Constellation many times, this was the first time I've been in the smaller of the two rooms. It seats about half as many people and was about 3/4 full (maybe 45 or so for the first set ....  not bad considering that there were less than 10 not long before the scheduled kick off). Acoustically it was pretty good, but maybe not quite as nice as the larger space.

I heard Malaby live a couple of times several years ago (with mixed results), and although I've heard a little from him on soprano, I've always considered him a tenor player. Still, I was excited when saw the soprano set up last night. I didn't have to wait long for him to switch horns, and as it turned out, he pretty much split time evenly between the two horns over the two sets.

The soprano wasn't treated as "tenor up an octave" (as can be the case when soprano is the secondary horn). Malaby took advantage of the sonic differences he has on the two horns - the lighter, fleetness of soprano and the robust tenor with lush subtone. He has a well balanced soprano sound with plenty of depth and a nice crisp edge. Add to that the bends, growls, altissimo, multiphonics, dynamics, air sounds and a bit of "sax can moo" (as Lacy would say) - it's a very flexible approach to the horn.

Just as his sound had variety so too did the improvisations - melodic and lyrical, dense and rapid, and textual/sound oriented playing kept things from getting bogged down. There was plenty of ebb and flow throughout the sets and the textural and dynamic elements were important factors.

I haven't followed Malaby's work that closely, and maybe he's playing soprano more these days, but it's rare that soprano as a second horn hits me the way it did on Saturday night. I could have listened to Malaby on the straight horn all night .