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Music Samples > Reviews
L.A. JAZZ SCENE
OTHER SOUNDS
JAZZ NOW
L.A. JAZZ SCENE
October 2003
WAXING POETIC REVIEWS
ERIC GOLUB
Pluck!
(Xeno Feel)
This is an intriguing project by Eric Golub. Golub is based in Northern California and has previously recorded with pianist Larry Vuckovich and Ian Dogole's Global Fusion. He plays adventurous music on the viola where he displays an appealing sound, impressive technique and an open-minded style. Well acquainted with the various styles of jazz, Golub is also open to incorporating elements of Eastern World music into his solos and compositions.
Three of the five selections on Pluck! are group improvisations by Golub, bassist Bill Douglass and percussionist Ian Dogole. Golub alternates between bowing his viola and playing it pizzicato like a guitar, using his thumb. Although freely improvised, the music is tonal, rhythmic and sometimes quite melodic, resolving into a catchy groove near the end of "Up On The Lookout." The other numbers, "Biola Dance" and "Dark Star," have Golub playing all of the instruments (viola, electric viola, violin, electric violin, cello, electric bass, a Japanese three-string fiddle, gongs, handclaps, voice, a variety of percussions and koto) while improvising in a similar spontaneous manner as the trio pieces. In fact, those numbers are so well recorded that one never notices the extensive overdubbing.
Golub's beautiful tone and creative imagination make all five of these pieces quite rewarding to hear and the music develops logically and colorfully. The only fault to the CD is its brief length (under 38 minutes) but the quality is certainly high. This is well worth checking out, and available from Xeno Feel Records (1611 Oxford St., #4, Redwood City, CA 94061 and ericgolub.com).
— Scott Yanow
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"OTHER SOUNDS"
CD Review:
Pluck! (Directions In Jazz Viola)
ERIC GOLUB
An individual in today's music who alone maintains a close creative bond with the instruments he uses in his creations is Eric Golub.
His direction involves an interior musical language and a mode of thinking that expresses itself through it; more of a transfer from one idiom that reflects itself rather than an approach or accomodation (based on the relative adaptability) of the instruments he uses.
Golub has been a pioneer of plucking rock riffs on string instruments, in particular the violin, before discovering the viola, the size and range of which are better for emulating the guitar. Then, discovering modern jazz and the further expressive possibilities of bowing on the viola, Golub naturally considered the language of saxophonists and trumpeters fundamental. Likewise, the need for adopting a non-violinistic approach for attacking and phrasing. In his explorations, he came to realize this was paramount to acquiring the language of non-occidental musics such as gypsy, Chinese or Indonesian.
Improvisation, pure and spontaneous, are the heart and essence of this album. Each musician has considerable freedom to imply harmony or not, to expand their voice within the context of the group, or to return to a more conventional function (of their respective instrument). In this context, the riff, rather than harmonic structures, becomes the grounding for improvisations characterized by pure instrumental interaction and experimentation.
From this context, the improvised language forges paths that are always fresh, and often evoking far-flung associations, incorporating aspects of very different cultures into the jazz vocabulary. Bill Douglass and Ian Dogole are two old friends of Golub's with whom he has had an experimental group called Sultans Of Swatch. Needless to say, the two of them make vital personal contributions to the improvisations. The particular sort of spontaneous dialogue heard on this disc would have been difficult to achieve without their efforts.
In "Biola Dance" and "Dark Star," all the instruments have been performed by Golub himself, who has given life to a musical entity of many facets, illustrated through their various improvised solos. These two serve to focus the improvisations on the moods of the arrangements, rather than in the interactive environment of the trio.
Golub's term 'pizzicato' indicates the typical European classical music technique involving the touching of strings (violins, violas, cellos, double basses) with the finger tips. This method allows the performer to maintain the traditional grasp of the instrument, with bow ready. On this album, however, Golub also uses the term 'viola pizzicato,' to indicate his particular style of plucking the strings with the thumb, while holding the viola as though it were a guitar or ukulele. This visibly departs from the historic or well-established role of the instruments he plays.
The pieces "Sultans Avenue" and "Roaming And Climbing" extend the improvisations in all their aspects, alternately exploiting the bowing and the plucking of the viola. The stylistic basis of "Dark Star" is seen in the use of a pair of plucked violas evoking 'rhythm guitars' in tandem with the bass role of a cello. The other piece "Biola Dance" recreates traditional elements of Sundanese music, from the west of Java in Indonesia, by use of the European pizzicato plucking on cello, viola and violin.
A daring openness, and a pioneering spirit of adventure are characteristic principles of this work produced by Eric Golub himself for Q Norman & Co. His seeming simplicity of approach notwithstanding, Golub's music poses questions which may deserve more attention and recognition.
— Salvatore Di Biase
translation: Eric Golub/Mort Golub
Jazz Now
eric golub
Pluck!
Xeno Feel Records XCD 001
Eric Golub, viola and many more instruments; Bill Douglas, double bass; Ian Dogole, dumbek, global drumkit, talking drum.
Eric Golub, playing mostly viola, and throughout the rest of the CD a battery of other instruments, sketches a wide range of interesting sounds on his opening track, "Sultan Avenue". Helped by his like-minded associates, Bill Douglas on bass and Ian Dogole on drums, you are made to listen differently because we have only a viola, a bass, and a dumbek ( an hour glass shaped hand drum found throughout the Arab world). "Roaming And Climbing" continues the improvisational spontaneity; this has a seductive, earthy feel, and an engaging rhythmic quality. In both of these tracks the viola is often played by holding it like a guitar.
"Biola Dance", arranged by Golub is a traditional Indonesian dance from West Java; improvising on four different instruments, a viola, Japanese three stringed fiddle, electric viola and a five string electric violin. He invokes haunting sounds, and draws on many threads of world music as it swings from solid raucousness to wistful interludes and a swirling finish. "Up On The Lookout", Golub makes his viola stretch and wail plaintively; the sounds will mean different things to different people; my daughter in another room thought she was hearing Whales. "Dark Star", another Golub arrangement is taken from "The Grateful Dead", the mind expansion rock cult band. A Jazzier piece with an uncertain edge, it evokes the vibes of a Grateful Dead concert in 1971. This is a CD for those who like new sounds and enjoy the challenge. Eric Golub is not afraid to take you there.
— Ferdinand Maylin
