Bassist Steve Swallow has been an early, and later, ground breaker in free-oriented jazz (I mentioned some of his disks with Jimmy Giuffre and Paul Bley recently) and he continues to be on "L'histoire du Clochard: The Bum's Tale."
This CD of seven compositions by Swallow is one of the better meldings of traditional jazz, free jazz and classical music forms I've heard. It has an out-of-the-ordinary mix of instruments with Swallow on electric bass and a tenor sax (co-leader Ohad Talmor, who's outstanding), trumpet, clarinet, trombone and violin. It sounds like New Orleans in places, jazzy chamber music in others and here and there reminds me of Bill Frisell's "Unspeakable" and of "Sketches of Spain." Heady music that gets more interesting each time I listen.
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