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Editors' Picks
Rebecca Gates & the Consortium + the Rice Cakes + Blue Cranes
Reed Walsmith won’t get lost while leading the Blue Cranes to AS220, 115 Empire Street, Providence. The saxophonist, who has been the prime mover of the Oregon outfit for several years, was once a member of Rhode Island’s Grüvus Malt and a La Prov resident. Since hightailing to the great Northwest, he’s shaped the Cranes into a fascinating jazzstrumental band that uses a two-reed front line to essay all sorts of provocative tunes. On Observatories (Blue Cranes), the group balances gorgeous melodies with experimental extrapolations. Some pieces sound like forlorn Ornette Coleman ballads; some sound like muscular Philip Glass explosions. Lots of their stuff is cinematic; I can see “These Are My People” working well behind a bravura scene in a bull ring. Waxing vivid at every turn, Wallsmith and company tilt toward the high water marks made by such bands as Curlew and the Muffins. Their current tour is being done by train, so don’t forget to ask them how their travel has been going. (Full disclosure: I helped the Cranes on their most recent CD’s packaging efforts.) Sharing the bill is their Northwest neighbor, Rebecca Gates. The former Spinanes singer knows a few things about vivid music herself. Her reedy voice and eerie tunes have often been fetching. The Rice Cakes share the bill
