Edge City Collective
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Aktivavoco
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Featured
guest vocalists: Vickie Dodd, Devan Miller, Judith-Kate
Friedman, and Jim Couture |
Aktivavoco Reviews
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"Edge City Collective is a coalition of like-minded creative musicians who seem determined to defy musical categorization... The diverse nature of the disc’s seventeen tracks traverses unpredictable musical spheres. While some of the pieces are intended as deliberate reflections on the absurdities of society, others evoke satire, diversity and optimism. "The musicians involved are all strongly adept, yet the focus is not on musical virtuosity, but rather on the imaginative and spontaneous reactions to sound. The vocalizations are all unique and integrate with the core instrumentation to create fresh textures. Dodd, who has performed with Anthony Braxton, and Miller, with mesmerizing Tuvan throat-singing, bring an abundance of creativity to the proceedings. "The sounds of Edge City
Collective are fresh, bold and challenging. Aktivavoco is
the perfect remedy to cure one’s displeasure for the mundane and
trivial." -Jon Barron, Jazz Review
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"Aktivavoco is an
example of what can happen when a large ensemble of diversely
talented musicians get together to improvise without boundaries,
drawing on a huge range of Western and Eastern spiritual/musical
traditions and throwing in some poetry and political satire too…
There are good things here—trumpeter Bart Miltenberger and
guitarist Scott Schaffer in particular are worth listening to… the
Riders in the Sky-style setting of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poem
“Brahma” (I kid you not) is the most memorable [track] on the
album. - Nate Dorward, Cadence
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“After a free-flowing
introductory duet between Dodd and Miltenberger, the program takes a
series of sudden twists... The spiraling slows by the album’s
seventh track, “Denove,” which playfully revisits the
trumpet-vocal theme, and Aktivavoco
settles into a groove defined by creative interplay between the
players and singers. Dodd exudes a spiritual energy that is at turns
meditative and frenetic. After “Metamorfozo” builds to peak
intensity, “Ridado” releases the tension in a hilarious collage
built on Thompson’s tenor solo. The album ends with the beautiful
“Harmonio,” and a moving coda. “Aktivavoco
is Edge City Collective’s most challenging work to date.
Inventive, spontaneous and rewarding, it is a fitting end to the
trilogy.” - Sam Mitchell, The Improvisor
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