Tradition can be a perilous thing, especially when one is compelled to both clearly follow one’s forebears and express oneself in a very personal manner. Alto saxophonist and clarinetist Aram Shelton is a young improvising composer who has called the Bay Area home for the last several years, though he came up in Chicago’s jazz hotbed alongside cornetist Josh Berman, drummer Frank Rosaly, and tenorman Keefe Jackson. The Way finds Shelton in the company of bassist Kurt Kotheimer and drummer Sam Ospovat on six originals. In the liner notes to last year’s self-titled Dragons 1976 disc, Shelton professed a kinship to Ornette, Ayler, and Shepp – and it is a testament to the reedman’s conviction in his own work to acknowledge his influences and yet (judging from recorded evidence) forge a distinct path.
Opening the set is the title track, a warm singsong melody that recalls mid-1960s Ornette as well as some of Steve Lacy’s nursery-rhyme tunes. It’s here that the similarities to 1965 end, though – Shelton’s alto, while hitting tartly rounded contours, moves into areas of severe repetition and abstraction, sort of like a self-contained albeit folksy “Nonaah.” Ospovat is bullish and thrashing, mining Shelton’s theme for explosive rhythmic nuggets. The bassist’s supple pizzicato underpins it all, his gauzy melodic shading offering just enough resolution to keep the triangle equilateral. “One Last Thing” has an incredibly infectious roiling groove, at slight odds with Shelton’s concentrated behind-the-beat cells. His solo elongates and circles back in on itself, Ospovat and Kotheimer hacking away at overlaid tempi yet never losing a profound sense of swing. “Switches” is one of two pieces featuring Shelton’s bass clarinet, an instrument he plays with precision and delicacy. Beginning with a husky duet of low reed and plucked bass, the pair move quickly into a stuttering theme before Shelton’s solo emerges, filled with wry, teasing snatches of phrase. The Way is an excellently-paced set, its quizzical themes dispatched quickly and engagingly – the disc clocks in at just under forty minutes. Shelton, Kotheimer and Ospovat comprise a trio of utmost conviction.
