IRREPRESSIBLE SPIRIT

Tor Snyder's Irrepressible Spirit has just that. Honestly, I didn't expect to like this larger ensemble with two vocalists, keyboards, drums, and the leader's guitar. I'd avoid labeling them fusion, as their style was not a "neither" but a "both." of jazz and rock. Snyder's guitar was stronger than I've ever heard him in other contexts, ranging from rock/noise screech, to beautiful responses to the other musicians' calls. Miles Griffith and the other vocalists did excellent and different (from each other) kinds of vocalisms, with roots from scat to vocalise to fields shouts, with David Pleasant spouting reams of semi-audible text to strong effect. Singer Griffith is just plain insane. I cannot wait to hear him again, and indeed, just noticed he's on the James Williams' ICU disc Truth Justice and the Blues (Evidence ECD 22142-2) sitting on my permanent shelf right now, and those liner notes tell me he's come from the Boys Choir of Harlem and has worked the Jon Hendricks and Wynton M. With ICU, Griffith flies within the tradition. With Irrepressible Spirit, Griffith flew off in every type of vocal known to human kind, carefully listening to the group before something struck him, and everything hit just the right unexpected spot.

7 in One

Dennis Warren's Full Metal Revolutionary Jazz Ensemble

By Mark Corroto

Let me take you out there to a place where energy meets sound. Where the electric Miles treads. Where freedom means a discipline to music, like a Sun Ra meltdown. Where the groove has no titles and John Coltrane can play a solo for two hours and you remain riveted in your seat. Dennis Warren lives here. His Full Metal Revolutionary Jazz Ensemble walks the land where Ornette Coleman' electric Prime Time and Ronald Shannon Jackson's band walked. His latest self-released recording is a nine track

sampling of that energy with their longest track clocking in at just short of eleven minutes. It's a pity, this release should have been nine discs of extended jams. Each track aches to be stretched out and grooved upon. Guess you will just have to catch FMRJE live.

The Green Mountain Jazz Messenger

Recordings of Note September/October 1999

7 in One

By John Barrett, Jr.

When I hear this I don't think of metal - this is sand, moving fast and always receptive to the winds of change. The rhythm keeps popping, slurring guitars over gathering drums. "Jazz Iron" takes the pulse and goes hot: Raphe Malik reaching high in spiraling notes. The left guitar starts a wah-wah, and his partner builds the thought: Hendrix one moment, Clapton the next. Malik returns softer, and here he blends; one more flavor in a thick tangy stew. It goes its own way, and yet you feel structure.

"Metal Petals" starts in Chico Hamiltion country: Earl Lawrence's flute, twisting exotic over the mist of cymbals. Some wah-wah splashes through, a spot of marimba, and Malik cries in the distance. The warmth of the jungle - and then it goes wild. Nature has wakened and Lawrence takes wing, a bird above the dense foliage. "First Hit" has the turbulence of "Iron," with Malik creeping softly. The power is Warren's drumming, and slippery twangs that dot the air. Lawrence moves slowly with calm in the midst of hysteria. Not as strong as "Iron," but nice, and I can't forget the flute!

It's a lighter sound on "Rhumba X:" Lawrence dancing smooth over big drums. It goes kinetic, without the density of before; a clearer taste that I enjoy. Malik's turn is good and ferocious. "Mercury" is a more aggressive "Iron;" here Lawrence shouts (with sweetness intact), and I love it. Malik is a foghorn, and the harsh strings really bring energy. Nice.

"Ogun's Flight" takes the prize; after a breakdown (and some delightful studio chatter) the rhythm bears down and Lawrence winds his sensual dance. No guitar heroes here; and Malik is a supplemental bass, adding a hum to the background. Everything in service to the mood, and this is PERFECT. A Santana feel starts to emerge, and the conga steps forward. Sweet rumbles develop, the cymbals shower, and Martin Gil gets his lone earthly solo. Then it ends; oddly abrupt, but we have crossed the world in ten minutes. It's been a trip: some bits sound alike but the horns are great and the interplay fun. It's a colorful dance - and how it moves!

SIGNAL to NOISE

The journal of improvised & experimental music

May/June 1999

7 in One (self-released)

Pete Gershon

The FMRJE celebrates it's tenth anniversary and sallies forth on another commando mission to bring electrified free jazz to the people. Trumpeter Raphe Malik blasts the fanfare and leads the way, flanked by Earl Grant Lawrence's soaring flute and the double guitar assault of Mike Sealy and Tor Yochai Snyder, while their indefatigable unit chief drummer Dennis Warren propels the unit from the engine room. If you love the smell of napalm in the morning, you'll savor the stinging mists that settle and shroud around the tribalistic tic tic rising from the jungle floor. Translation: Martin Gil's percussion adds to the music's organic flavor in spite of the two guitarists' effects-drenched metal-bending. It's worth noting that this is the first time a sax-less FMRJE has been recorded, opening things up a bit for the other solists and allowing some less dominating colors to creep through. The unit's newest member, electric basses Alby Balgochian, lays down a fluid and sometimes quite rhythmic bottom end (as on the uncharacteristically languid "Metal Petals") which could serve as an easy point of access for the uninitiated. But to these ears, the ballistic, if somewhat homogenous, moments of rapid-fire trumpet and dense drum-punishing are the most rewarding. Allow yourself to be swept into the vortex and judge for yourself.

Seven Days Reviews

April 21, 1999

Bill Barton

Full Metal Revolutionary Jazz Ensemble,

7 in One (self-released, CD)

Sometimes a group's name says it all. With Dennis Warren's Full Metal Revolutionary Jazz Ensemble that is certainly the case. Colchester resident and percussionist Martin Gil says they play "collectively improvised art music" - part of a tradition that began over 30 years ago spearheaded by Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler, Bill Dixon, Archie Shepp, John Coltrane's Ascension recording, and Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz sessions, among others.

If you already have an affinity for any of these artists, you may find the FMRJE of more than a passing interests; if not, be forewarned: This is not music for the faint of heart. The four core members of the ensemble- drummer/leader Warren, percussionist Gil, trumpeter Raphe Malik and electric guitarist Tor Yochai Snyder - have played together for 10 years. Previous incarnations of the band released five cassettes and three CDs, all self-produced with the exception of 1996 Watch Out! CD on the Accurate label.

7 in One features a very different sonic palette than its predecessors, with the excoriating ululation's of the saxophonists replaced by the burnished flute sound of Earl Grant Lawrence. This change tempers the often cathartic and trenchant free-form blowing with a coruscating lightness of timbre that adds depth to the group's available tone colors and actually makes the music more accessible. It's an unusual combination of instruments, with electric guitarist Mike Sealy and electric bassist Albey Balgochian completing the line up. The disc's highlights include "Metal Petals," anchored by a loping repeating bass riff and evoking a quasi-Oriental or perhaps even Native American ambiance thanks to the melodic flute improvisations, and "Ogun's Flight," a timbale and percussion driven paean to the Yoruba god of war(iron). "Blues Ore" is a morbid, dirge-like piece by trumpeter Malik that would have been right at home on the Miles Davis' Agharta album.

Malik is probably the best-known among FMRJE, having recorded several CDs under his own name, and sharing the front line with Jimmy Lyons and violinist Ramsey Ameen in one of Cecil Taylor's more memorable Units. His heraldic improvisations rise out of the cacophony of "First Hit" like a fearless and articulate preacher addressing a bar full of drunks. Some of the other pieces here are less successful, but it could be argued that any

Some of the other pieces here are less successful, but it could be argued that any recording of this type of open-ended collective improvisation is at best a blurry snap shot, incapable of capturing the here-and-nowness of the moment. Part of the definition of "metal" is that it is "a chemical element that can conduct heat and electricity." The FMRJE conduct plenty of both on 7 in One.

Jazz Mandolin

Dennis Warren's Full Metal Revolutionary Jazz Ensemble

Watch Out! (AC-5017)

Dennis Warren's Full Metal Revolutionary Jazz Ensemble is one of the venerable jazz groups of Boston. Together since 1987, the band is rooted in musical partnerships that date back to 1971. Although the group has been self-issueing cassettes and one Cd over the years (a number of which have been reviewed in major music magazines). "Watch Out!" is their first commercially released recording, and their most varied and accessible effort to date. Along with Boston native Warren, the key member of the FMRJE is composer/trumpeter Raphe Malik. Malik is a veteran of avant-garde piano giant Cecil Taylor's band, and played on a number of Taylor's significant 1970's recordings, including the half-million selling "Dark to Themselves."

Malik's compositions, reflecting the jazz tradition from gut bucket blues to Miles Davis modalism, to Cecil Taylor energy music, form the majority of the repertoire. The poly rhythmic drumming of Warren and percussionist Martin Gil provide a rolling, dancing, pounding backdrop for the four-horn frontline, with an acoustic bass/electric guitar string section to tie it all together.

Warren studied with Bill Dixon and Milford Graves at Bennington College, and along with Gil, Malik and alto saxophonist Tony Owens, studied with Cecil Taylor at Antioch College. Bassist Larry Roland has been a steady performer on the Boston/Roxbury jazz scene for over twenty years. Guitarist Tor Yochai Snyder has been working with Warren since they met at Bennington College in 1980. Tenor saxophonist Raqib Hassan is a veteran of the Roxbury scene, and flautist Earl Grant Lawrence brings a classical background to the FMRJE.

KFJC new album review July 31, 1996

Watch Out!

by Hairy Kari

It can be said this was a long time in the making since Dennis Warren, Gil, Owens and Malik all went to school in the Black Music Division of Antioch College, directed by none other than Cecil Taylor. It is jazz and improv in pretty complex form. There is skronk, but it isn't just sploogin' cause the percussion is intense and creates an entire layer of sound that doesn't just provide the rhythm, it competes with the horns. Adam's Garden Sketch is the simplest, and most groove ridden track. Mallets is a 25:30 747 ride in turbulence, that can be played over "Runaway Train." Some one should sneak these guys into some club near the Olympics and when these fat ugly American touristas come into the joint looking for dinner club jazz and a high cholesterol cream butter and cheese lobster dish, FMRJE can just blow them a new colostomy bag.

Coda Magazine March/April 1997

Similar Limits

Randall McIlroy

Cats think on their feet. That's always been a big part of this music's appeal - so much dancing on tightropes - but the latest box of wonders dispatched from Coda West is especially valuable for its productive risks, and spurs the hyperbolic mind to thoughts of finer intelligence in the brewing. The old symbiotic relationship between composing and improvising seems increasingly moot. A Dutch ensemble called it 'instant composing,' and hearing the earliest Duke Ellington sides you know that's not a new thing. but its growing...

So does Dennis Warren's Full Metal Revolutionary Jazz Ensemble with Watch Out!. The drummer/leader works with to the score of burning trumpet player Raphe Malik, but for most of this fifth release restlessness makes the loosest seams bulge. Malik and tenorist Raqib Hassan do much of the stretching to the forefront, but it's Warren himself who, with percussionist Martin Gil, keeps up the pushing.

Sometimes that makes for tiring listening. Better, occasionally, to have the action in your face instead of rustling forever below your feet. It isn't all so itchy, fortunately. Dedicated to the struggle against tyranny in Columbia, Song for the Resistance is a stirring march with warm echoes of Charlie Haden. Baptism, moved by the "daunting task of explaining the inequities of life to a child," proves once again that passion can burn just as surely at lower flame, and there are feeling solos from Malik, flautist Earl Grant Lawrence and bassist Larry Roland.

Orlando Sentinel August 9, 1996

Dennis Warren's

Full Metal Revolutionary Jazz Ensemble,

Watch Out! ( Accurate)

4 star review **** good

Parry Gettelman

Some of us tend to forget what we learned in school about 10 minutes after graduation. Maybe that's because we didn't have teachers as exciting as avant-garde pianist composer Cecil Taylor, who directed the Black Music Division of Antioch College in the early '70s.

A quarter century down the road, four of Taylor's former Antioch students could no longer doubt still pass any pop quiz he threw at them. Taylor's percussive intensity and fierce combustibility are obvious inspirations to drummer Dennis Warren, percussionist Martin Gil, alto saxophonist Tony Owens and trumpeter Raphe Malik. They formed the Full Metal Revolutionary Jazz Ensemble in 1987, along with bassist Larry Roland, electric guitarist Tor Yochai Snyder, flautist Earl Grant Lawrence and tenor saxophonist Raqib Hassan.

Watch Out! is the FMRJE's fifth album of the '90s and first for Accurate. Although Warren is the group leader, six of the seven tracks were composed by Malik, who has continued to play with Taylor over the years. The eight -minute "D.C." makes an exhilarating opener with its wild poly rhythms and horn arrangements that combines improvisational freedom with deftly structured harmonies. " Kablooey" is aptly titled, and Warren asserts his leadership with incendiary but highly melodic solo.

By contrast, "Adam's Garden Sketch" is a languid bitter-sweet and "Baptism" a melancholy ballad. At 25 minutes, the mercurial "Mallets" progresses through extreme - somber bowed - bass passages, suspenseful percussion solos; a gentle but wary trio of flute, bass and drums; electric guitar like harsh sheets of rain; cawing saxophone over thunderous drums and the harsh scraping of bow on bass; gnashing guitar; a peppery trumpet solo. The grave ending is surprising but well-motivated.

Warren and Gil close the album with their own "Currents," a three-minute kaleidoscope of polyrhytms. They use multi-tracking to create a dense, hypnotic effect. While a little of this sort of thing usually goes a long way, this piece could actually have been developed into something longer.

Cadence May 1999

Dennis Warren 's Full Metal Revolutionary Jazz Ensemble

7 in One, FMRJE Productions 1998

by Robert Spencer

The name and instrumentation of this band would lead anyone to expect a pedal-to-the floor production, "Jazz Iron" delivers right away, courtesy the superb trumpeter Malik. The under appreciated Cecil Taylor alumnus, who added so much sheer power to Rova's 1995 Ascension concert, is on fire here. Here and on "First Hit" he soars as high as he ever has, over a peripatetic foundation provided by Warren, the Sharrockian guitarists, and, somewhat surprisingly, the flautist Lawrence, who throughout this disc (see "Hit Me D/M" and the furious "Molten Seeds") winds lines around Malik's with an expert sense of timing and discretion. But everything isn't flat-out here; "Metal Petals," unexpectedly, is a shimmering, soft-spoken vehicle for Lawrence, broken in the middle by a rather uninspired guitar break of the heavy-metal-in-repose line. Malik's "Blues Ore" is a strolling electric bath, on which the trumpeter is again notably imaginative and strikingly lyrical at high speed. "Rhumba X," the collective improvisation "Mercury," and "Ogun's Flight" dip into Latin and African percussion grooves. There is great playing all over this disc.

Down Beat November 1996

CD Reviews

Skin Games

Dan Ouellette

Dennis Warren's Full Metal Revolutionary Jazz Ensemble: Watch Out! (Accurate 5017;65:06:****)

4 star Review

The exclamatory title says it all. The rampaging drummer leads his eight member FMRJE through trumpeter Raphe Malik's free-spirited compositions, including "Mallets," a captivating suite written as a forum for the spirit of the drum. While Warren crashes, bangs, roars and punches into the out zone, he also gets to flick, tap, march and brush when the squalls momentarily dissipate. His "Currents" surges with poly rhythmic rip tide of drumming.

SoS Jazz December 1996

Dennis Warren & FMRJE

Watch Out! Accurate 65:03

Mark Corroto

For years drummer Dennis Warren has been pushing his brand of high energy jazz, selling cassettes, CDs, and booking gigs for the enlightened. Together with trumpeter Raphe Malik ( a student of Cecil Taylor), Warren has kept his AACM-inspired sound alive. I first heard the Full Metal Revolutionary Jazz Ensemble playing, or should I say preaching, against the Gulf war. When was the last time you remembered jazz as being protest music? Maybe the Archie Shepp or Max Roach years. Today's Generation X jazzer's don't rock the corporate boat. The FMRJE's debut on a national label, Watch Out! has the vision of Coltrane, orchestration of Sun Ra, and a creativity all its own. The eight piece ensemble plays a percussion heavy improvisational music reminiscent of Ornette's free jazz, Mile's mid-seventies bands, and Threadgill's approach to music. Thick with meaning. Dennis Warren doesn't hesitate to wow you with his groove.

Jazz Now June 1994

Very Live

Chris Kelsey

Dennis Warren on drums, timbalitos, and congas; Earl Grant Lawrence on flute; Larry Roland on acoustic bass; Marco Eneidi on alto saxophone; Martin Gil on congas and percussion; Raphe Malik on trumpet; Raqib Hassan on tenor saxophone and mussette; Tor Yochai Snyder on electric guitar. Recorded at Middle East Downstairs in Cambridge on February 15, 1994. On Very Live, multi-percussionist Dennis Warren's Full Metal Revolutionary jazz Ensemble addresses issues of freedom and community with intelligence and passion. Trumpeter -composer Raphe Malik's tunes impose a loose order upon the music, providing something of a platform without tying anyone's hands unnecessarily. Malik's solos are among the album's most compelling, along with the work of flutist Earl Grant Lawrence. Warren plays with a firm but sensitive touch, often suggesting but seldom dictating the music's directions. Overall, the music of FMRJE is very honest, very intense, and very human. It is also an up-to-date accounting of the virtues of free jazz.

Option May/June 1993

FMRJE In Concert

David Shirley

This is a complete departure from the ensemble's last full-ensemble recording, Black Odyssey In America, where the imaginative balance of a number of African-American musical forms over shadowed the occasional, modest solo improvisation. Recorded live in Burlington, Vermont , in the summer of 1992, this recording is in fact nothing but improv-almost 60 minutes of uninterrupted minutes of it. Surprisingly, given the instrumental limitations of the earlier release, this is also a much stronger, more interesting recording. For one thing, the live mix is spacious, clear and strangely reminiscent of the Miles Davis's bands of the late '70s in its ability to feature any number of instruments playing at once without the whole thing collapsing into a cacophonous blur. The solos are fine throughout (particularly on the extended statements from trumpet player Raphe Malik and flautist Earl Grant Lawrence) with Polish vocalist Teresa Sienkiewicz providing some unexpectedly arty vocalese. But what really stands out are the rhythm and guitars. Bottom-wise, drummer Dennis Warren and standup bassist Larry Roland lay down a muted but furious track that pushes the rest of the performers to the front throughout. And co-guitarist Tor Yochai Snyder and Michael Haag alternate tense, Blood Ulmer-style skonks with the dark yawning chords of Bill Frisell. A fine recording.

the improvisor 1993

FMRJE In Concert

LaDonna Smith

The FMRJE was formed in 1987 in Boston, and is some of the most exciting large ensemble/big band ( call it what you will) music I've heard in a long time. It contains the chaos and power of the Euro-large -jazz orchestras; and the groove of tribal ancestors, mixed through waves of form and the _expression of the 20th Century sensibilities. Swirling in luscious sound masses, surging like a clam ocean tide, its naturalness is so attractive to the ears. No traces of cliched jazz-forms to be found, albeit in this, very jazz influenced blitzkrieg of tonalities and rhythmic apportionments. And there is an unequivocal dedication expressed to improvisation as the art of the 21st Century, as "This music demonstrates our ancient roots and our future communications...Improvisations contains the science of evolution and the natural chaos of the universe with all its potential. The keys to humanity is in this music!"

College Music Journal

Futures Jackpot!

Black Odyssey In America

February 14, 1992

James Lien

We never thought we'd say it, but right now we're listening to an unsigned demo tape that surveys the same rhythmic ground as the Last Poets, undulates in free-form jazz/funk groove wave across Ornette to Hendrix to Material and Last Exit, screams the same incendiary socio-political message as Gil Scott-Heron, all the while the band lays down the heaviest set of grooves we've heard this side of a sweat-soaked early -'70's James Brown LP side. Musically, these guys are heavy enough to bak up a bold claim - several members studied under Cecil Taylor during his legendary teaching spell at Antioch College, and others have extensive careers gigging with a wide variety of pan-continental ensembles. What it all adds up to is that these guys have been around paying dues far too damn long to go so completely and utterly unnoticed. While admittedly James Kelly's rap could sometimes use the occasional tightening up (he's not quite reached the oratorical dynamism of a Chuck D. just yet, but he's already better than most), his voice nonetheless commands respect. We sorely pressed to single out any eight as better than the rest, but we'd have to stand by "Nightmare In The U.S.A." and "Oil in The Sand" as vocal/instrumental tops, while the band gets theirs on the flawless "Captain Blood," "Black Odyssey In America" and "Soweto."

recording of this type of open-ended collective improvisation is at best a blurry snap shot, incapable of capturing the here-and-nowness of the moment. Part of the definition of "metal" is that it is "a chemical element that can conduct heat and electricity." The FMRJE conduct plenty of both on 7 in One.