There's one strange and wonderful event after another in Fewell's pieces — eloquent solo statements, serendipitous combinations of clang and sigh, the beauty of his guitar set across the soundstage from Hofbauer's slightly harder-edged sound as the two support the other players. At times, the bed of complementary guitar sounds acts like a pine-needle-covered path through a shady forest. "I want an environment where there's experimentation but also expectation, freedom but also responsibility. A lot of free music is too free. You're always risking whether something is going to happen or not."
Fewell splits his time between Boston, where he's been teaching at Berklee since 1977, and summers in Europe — he and his wife have a home in Bergamo, just northeast of Milan, that serves as a base. He and Hofbauer often work as a duo (as on their standout 2008 CD, The Lady of Khartoum), and he continues to work with Tchicai. One of the many interpersonal felicities of Variable Density was Fewell's dragging son Alex — a rock drummer now studying at Berklee — into the studio. Fewell recalls driving around with Alex, then 16 or 17, and listening to the legendary free-jazz drummer Milford Graves on the car stereo. "He asked me, 'Hey Dad, do you have to know how to play drums to play like that?' It was a good question!"
Fewell does have friends and fans who miss his old music. "Was my true self when I was playing with Fred Hersch and Cecil McBee on Blue Deeper Than Blue? Yeah, at the time! But I didn't throw out melody in order to create chaos. For a few of my friends, this is already too far out. But they're looking for that other guy to come back, and I don't know if he is."
GARRISON FEWELL'S VARIABLE DENSITY SOUND ORCHESTRA | Cambridge Family YMCA Theater, 820 Mass Ave, Cambridge | 30 January at 8 pm | $15 | www.cambridgeymca.org
Related:
2009: The year in jazz, Variable density, No identity crisis, More 
- 2009: The year in jazz
Here, in no particular order, are some of my favorite things from among the people, CDs, and concerts I wrote about in 2009.
- Variable density
To call what Garrison Fewell does with his Variable Density Sound Orchestra "free jazz" doesn't quite fit the bill.
- No identity crisis
If great art and great artists are supposed to contain multitudes, then in music, at least, pianists have the edge: 10 fingers theoretically capable of 10 different simultaneous paths for the music to take. Of course, it's not that simple.
- Blackshaw's good vibrations
Blackshaw's low-key career has evolved as organically as one of his songs: at 28, the Londoner has amassed a body of instrumental guitar music that defies tidy categorization. What he does isn't really folk, jazz, or new age — and it's far too accessible to be mistaken for avant-garde.
- No connections
There's very little connecting these two shows except that both were jazz and both took place on the same night. So I won't try.
- Lionel Loueke | Mwaliko
Benin-born, Paris-and-Berklee-educated guitarist Loueke knows how to cover a lot of ground and make it all sound of a piece.
- The Souljazz Orchestra | Rising Sun
We're living in the middle of a veritable renaissance of "Spiritual Jazz."
- Reeling in the years
Call John Pizzarelli a mensch — he's smart, chatty, and a hot ticket. Hell of a guitarist, too.
- The onliest Sonny
Sonny Rollins has held the unofficial title of world’s greatest living improviser at least since the early ’70s, following the death of John Coltrane and the second of two extended Rollins sabbaticals from public performance.
- Extremeties
You can experience jazz at two different extremes at the Regattabar this month, in visits from the quintets of Dave Holland and Tomasz Stanko.
- Review: Sonny Rollins at Symphony Hall
The lines were around the block for will-call and walk-up ticket purchases at Symphony Hall Sunday night — causing the show to start a half hour after its advertised curtain time. The place was nearly full, the mood celebratory. All good to see in a down economy. But this was the first disappointing Sonny Rollins concert I’ve attended in years.
- Less
Topics:
Jazz
, Entertainment, Music, Variable Density Sound Orchestra, More
, Entertainment, Music, Variable Density Sound Orchestra, Achille Succi, Butch Morris, Roy Campbell, Eric Hofbauer, Jazz and Blues, Joshua Redman, John Coltrane, Less
