Daunik Lazro • Benjamin Duboc • Mathieu Bec « Standards Combustion » // Peter Margasak, Nowhere Street

Daunik Lazro Blurs the Line Between the New Thing and Stardard Repertoire

I have long respected and enjoyed the playing of veteran French saxophonist Daunik Lazro, but he’s never made a recording that struck such an immediate chord with me like his new trio outing Standards Combustion (Dark Tree). It’s his third trio album for the label since 2011, but unlike the first two with bassist Benjamin Duboc and drummer Didier Lassere—both fully improvised sessions exploring extended abstractions in a way that still feels de rigueur today—the new release features Mathieu Bec on drums and is primarily built around tunes. I can’t say for sure whether it’s Bec—whom I’d never previously heard, but will now be on the lookout for—or the instrumental format that has made the difference, but the recording has really taken me by surprise. Lazro was born in 1945, and this album feels a bit like a reflection on his earliest influences of the 1960s.

The album design deploys a very familiar Blue Note sendup, but what the trio calls “standards” here would still be met with shock by many old-school jazz listeners. In fact, a bunch of the pieces are so connected to the improvisatory fire of the saxophonists that composed them—especially Albert Ayler’s “Ghosts” or John Coltrane’s “Vigil”—that they might seem to repel that assignation. Of course, the braying melody of “Ghosts” feels so eternal and warmly familiar that it would be hard to argue against its elevation to the realm of standard rep. Below you can hear the trio’s elastic take on the Wayne Shorter classic “Nefertiti,” which remains inexorably tied to the version recorded by the Miles Davis Quintet on the 1965 album of the same name, but there are other tunes here that reveal themselves to be enduring, a quality I wouldn’t have randomly attached to Steve Lacy’s genuinely indelible “Deadline,” presented here with elastic grace.

The argument against the standards format getting credit for my connection to the record is undercut by a couple of fully improvised pieces that sound as good and strong as any of the composed material, including Lazro’s own “Line Up for Lacy.” Duboc and Bec make for a fantastic rhythm section, maintaining an undeniable pulse and form while leaving tons of space. Bec sounds like a cross between Sunny Murray, without the persistent cymbal sizzle, and Sven-Åke Johansson, transforming swing into a barely controlled rumble. Duboc’s mastery of space and silence is something else. I don’t mean to sound backhanded when I write that his periods of absence sometimes convey as much power as his most furious sallies. The way they carve out space is perfect for Lazro’s sighing phrases, striated tone, and deliciously careening lines. It’s a superb effort and I sure hope to hear more from the group.