Tim Berne, 'Science Friction' (2002)
At the end of Playing Changes is a list: The 129 Essential Albums of the Twenty-First Century (So Far). I organized these by year, and then alphabetically by artist name. I'll be running them down here, in that order. (No one appears more than once as a leader, though there’s ample overlap in personnel.)
For a few years in the early 2000s, I saw an awful lot of Tim Berne. Mostly in the Old Office space at the Knitting Factory, where the dimensions were tight and the sound could be fierce.
The group that set the bar then was Bloodcount, a take-no-prisoners quartet with Berne on alto and baritone saxophones, Chris Speed on tenor, Michael Formanek on bass and Jim Black on drums. This band had all the fury and combustion of a postpunk band, but with the spontaneous agility of the best sort of jazz combo. (For the full immersion, consult the Screwgun Records page on Bandcamp.)
At some point in 2001, Berne began bringing around a different foursome. This band featured the gonzo French guitarist Marc Ducret; the quick-flash drummer Tom Rainey; and the revelatory keyboardist Craig Taborn, often using borrowed analog synths and Fender Rhodes. I knew Taborn then as the pianist in James Carter's Young Lionish band of the '90s. Here he seemed to be spiraling out into some outer nebula, expanding the texture and tonality of the band in ways that felt thrillingly in-the-moment, even almost illicit.
As you can imagine, I was gobsmacked by Science Friction, the album that this group eventually released. Here was a new paragon of Berne's long-form compositional strategies, with warped echoes of early-'70s Miles Davis, the late-'80s downtown scene, and the eternal verities of the AACM.
And whereas Bloodcount conveyed a feeling of sweat and toil, the band on Science Friction sounded elliptically, enigmatically cool, like something that had just tumbled out of the hatch of an alien spacecraft. I can still identify with this impression when I listen to the album today; check out the opening track, "Huevos," below, and see what you feel.