nk-jazz - 24/02/2007@Sounds, Bruxelles

Nicolas Kummert - ts (website | myspace)
Pierre Perchaud - g (myspace)
Chris Jennings - b (myspace)
Lionel Beuvens - d (myspace)

This band brings together both of Nicolas's currently important geographic locations - he met Chris Jennings and Pierre Perchaud in Paris, Lionel Beuvens is an old Belgian friend - but continues his search for a kind of spontaneous, contrapuntal harmony found in wide open, often rubato, spaces. Ornette Coleman looms large in his conception of this, as it did during his cello quartet's concert here last year.

Lionel is a good drummer to do this kind of thing with. On Bunky Green's wistful ballad "Little One I'll Miss You," the switch from one single pinging cymbal to another, separated by a brief snare drum roll, set the basis for an intimate atmosphere in which the smallest gestures were magnified. Even on the forward-moving African, polyrhythmic groove of Nicolas's "69 Eyes," Lionel remained as concerned with how the rhythm is sounded of the rhythm as with how it is sequenced.

Coleman's "Beauty Is A Rare Thing" brought all these concerns together. Lionel's cascades of mallets climaxed with single, super-loud bass drum hits, separated by a good second or so of silence - humour, yes, but also a demonstration of the drums' expressive qualities - before a spare theme rendition gave way to fierce collective rhythm.