LOS ANGELES IMPROVISATIONAL ENSEMBLE, Insubordinate Lunar Transgressions

It’s quite the challenge to find descriptive words to top those used in the marketing materials to promote the provocatively/trippily titled Insubordinate Lunar Transgressions, a thoughtful and soulful yet supremely whimsical, fully improvised suite of 12 track suite by a quartet of seasoned musicians DBA the Los Angeles Improvisational.

They prepare us for the uniqueness of spirited, edge of their seat romps like “Sergei’s Diabolical Circus” and playful charmers a la “When Johnny Comes Running Home” by informing us that the realm the quartet works in is one “where jazz disintegrates and classical explodes.” It’s been a few years since the pandemic so it’s easy to forget how much pent-up creative energy veteran musicians deprived of regular sessions and gigs had when they came back to life a year or two later.

This recording from the Summer of 2021 is a great reminder of the joyful collective catharsis of the music community. Rather than explain any sort of thematic ideas or machinations that gave birth to hypnotic (and super fun!) mindbenders with quirky titles (“Igor’s Infernal Rite to Sacrificial Square,” “Humoresque for Clarinet and Contrass”) balanced by darker immersions (“Warsaw”), pianist Lewis Stewart simply informs us in his terse liner notes that the mission he shared with Robert Hardt (woodwinds), Andrew Shulman (cello) and Michael Valerio (bass) was to “get together to go back to the very roots of music and record an album based on completely free improvisation,” with ideas that came spontaneously on the spot.

For a clue as to their foundational mindset, he adds that “a combination of contemporary idioms would be best” and they came up with stylistic improvisations that inhabited the worlds of Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Copland and Schoenberg, as well as contemporary jazz and world music. Any single recording whose settings take us from a mysterious “Tunisian Hookah Bar” to a jaunty “Solar Voyage” and a through frenetic “Excursions into the Unknown” is bound to be a highly adventurous listen full of unexpected delights.

It’s not surprising considering the vast resumes of each participant, which you can read about in the colorful booklet accompanying the physical CD. Considering that this mesmerizing project is not on streaming, it seems an intentional way to test our courage to listen to something unique and learn more about who’s playing.