In-Demand Trombonist Reut Regev S R*Time Releases Exploring the Vibe Hard Hitting

In-Demand Trombonist Reut Regev’s R*Time releases exploRing the vibe

Hard Hitting, Groove-Centric Sophomore Release Out March 12, 2013 (Enja Records)

Inside the cover of Exploring the Vibe, the second release from Reut Regev’s R*Time, the trombonist, composer and bandleader balances her one-year-old daughter on her knee, while husband/drummer Igal Foni looks on. The baby “wasn’t an idea” when the CD was recorded, according to Regev, but the music within is nonetheless a family affair.

Not only is R*Time a joint venture between Regev and Foni, but the compositions on Exploring the Vibe were created and honed over a week-long rehearsal process at the couple’s home in Rahway, New Jersey. The band lived, worked and relaxed together, and the music grew naturally from those interactions. “We wanted it to be more about the feeling and the vibe behind the music, not just the compositions and the improvisations,” Regev says. “The process of making the recording was very organic.”

Regev was born and raised in Israel, where she served in the army band as first trombonist and soloist while performing with many of the country’s most creative musicians. Since arriving in New York more than a decade ago, she has performed with renowned artists of a similarly inventive bent, including Anthony Braxton, Elliott Sharp, Dave Douglas, Frank London, and Butch Morris.

She and Foni, whose multi-faceted rhythmic approach unites studies of everything from South Indian and Haitian drumming to rock and soul beats, comprise the core of R*Time, which features a constantly rotating membership. Here they’re joined by fusion guitar great Jean-Paul Bourelly, who has worked with both the AACM and the Black Rock Coalition and played with legends including Miles Davis, McCoy Tyner, and Elvin Jones; and bassist Mark Peterson, who has performed with James Blood Ulmer, Ornette Coleman and Clark Terry, scored numerous television projects and served as assistant bandleader for Cirque u Soleil. Tying into the homemade feel of the record, Regev and Foni had crossed paths with Peterson numerous times during their European travels, but didn’t realize until it came time to record that he was virtually a neighbor, living within ten minutes of them.

The creative process was nurtured in part by a snowstorm that struck just as the rehearsal process began, Regev recalls. “We were snowed in, so we didn’t even go out to eat. We cooked at home, we listened to music together - we really got to know each other during that week. It wasn’t just a quick get-together for a rehearsal or two.”

“ Drama Maybe Drama,” the opening track on Exploring the Vibe, is perhaps the strongest evidence of the fruits of that process. The ten-minute track was assembled from the highlights of an hour-long improvisation, which was recorded and played back, its strongest moments then stitched together into a composition which begins with a heavy funk groove and evolves into more abstract textures, with Regev exploring the outer limits of her instrument.

Bourelly first joined R*Time for a concert at the 2009 Berlin Jazz Festival, and the . Regev admired Bourelly’s “feeling and honesty. He’s never trying to do something which has to fall into a specific style.” Foni continues, “He’s not trying to be a funk guy or a free jazz guy – he’s always honest and plays his music without thinking about where it will fit stylistically, and we’re very attracted to that.” Exploring the Vibe takes full advantage of those wide-ranging stylistic interests, veering from free jazz to funk, from New Orleans brass band celebration to heavy metal power, blues to rap to rock. The freely improvised “Breaking the Silence” corrals Bourelly’s monster guitar sound and Foni’s driving, clattering drumbeat into an insistently grinding rock breakdown, while “Ilha Bela” evokes an enchanting, Afro-Brazilian feel.

The buoyant “Madeleine Forever” extends the family further, serving as a remembrance of Foni’s mother, who passed away last year. Other tunes pay homage to the late drummer Oliver Johnson “Ok Oj” and to blues great Junior Kimbrough, the inspiration for “Raw Way,” which begins as a haunting blues and grows into a ferocious metal eruption.

The luxury of working together for so long prior to stepping into the studio also allowed for some left-field ideas, like the paint can percussion played by Foni and Bourelly (while playing guitar with his other hand!) on “Great Pretender,” which also features politically- charged lyrics sung by Bourelly; or the shortwave radio squawks introduced to subvert the jubilant mood of Peterson’s “New Beginning,” with Bourelly’s stream-of-consciousness rap.

Even when compositions are credited to a single author – Bourelly’s brief, brooding “Hashed In,” for instance, or Regev’s spare “Montenegro,” written during some down time while on tour with Elliott Sharp – the unique process transformed each piece into a collective effort, according to Regev. “We were really able to get deeply into the music,” she says, “and make something that is unique to the four of us together.”

www.reutregev.com // +1 (212) 426-7820 // // www.enjarecords.com // booking: [email protected] or [email protected]