Between his rock band Ceramic Dog, his albums featuring original and classic protest music, and his singer/songwriter efforts, iconoclastic guitarist Marc Ribot hasn’t followed the Zappaesque admonition to “shut up and play yer guitar” in a dozen years. That changes with the release of Hurry Red Telephone. Gathering some friends and anchoring the tunes with longtime compatriot Chad Taylor on drums, Ribot kicks out the jams while keeping his mouth shut.
Ribot and Taylor recorded the songs in two different sessions, one with bassist Hilliard Greene and alternating saxophonists Brian Settles and James Brandon Lewis, and the other with bassist Sebastian Steinberg and saxophonist Briggan Krauss. Ribot and Taylor kick off the record with Greene and Lewis on the appropriately-titled “New Monster,” fifteen minutes worth of blues rock/free jazz mind meld. If you ever wanted to know what Cream might have sounded like if their heroes had been Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor instead of Muddy Waters and Freddie King, this will engage your limbic system. Settle replaces Lewis for the barely contained chaos of “Gnat,” upping the ante for noise and aggression. Krauss and Steinberg weave groove and skronk through the rumbling “Faucets of Terrible” and the storming Frantz Casseus -composed “Nan Guinan,” but also lower the tone for the surprisingly lovely “Ghost of Sleeping.” Lewis and Greene return for final track “Rara,” another Casseus tune which does for Afro-Cuban music what Albert Ayler (a Ribot hero) did for New Orleans second line.
With songs loosely composed to encourage collective improvisation, Hurry Red Telephone seems to just explode with energy, as if Ribot had been holding a lot in since 2014’s Live at the Village Vanguard – turmoil even Ceramic Dog couldn’t relieve. Chaos, order, anger, and joy coalgulate for a raucous, rancorous, raving good time.
