James Falzone's Renga Ensemble - The Room Is (2015) [Hi-Res]

Superb Chicago clarinetist and composer James Falzone has adapted jazz-derived improvisation to Middle Eastern traditions, played Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, and paid homage to Benny Goodman, so I’m almost used to seeing him launch rigorous, conceptually interesting projects. Still, his new six-member clarinet choir, Renga, is especially exciting: Falzone, Ken Vandermark, Jason Stein, and Keefe Jackson are joined by visiting musicians Ben Goldberg and Ned Rothenberg, two of the most original clarinetists of the past two decades. The group takes its name from a centuries-old form of collaborative Japanese poetry, where two or three poets blend their words into a single meditative work. “This struck me as an apt metaphor for an ensemble of improvising musicians,” Falzone explains. Three members of Renga occasionally play saxophones, but clarinets dominate, ranging from the hefty contrabass to the sopranino E-flat horn; in this context, timbral exploration will be just as important to the group’s music as Falzone’s longtime interest in blurring the lines between improvisation and composition. (Peter Margasak, The Chicago Reader)