An enigmatic mist of sound rose from the inner courtyard at Pioneer Works to the top of a makeshift tower with a spiral staircase scarier than any Hitchcock movie set a couple of weekends ago. As Uncivilized bandleader/guitarist Tom Csatari finally edged his way through the clouds of horns, and keys, and drummer Rachel Housle’s deftly muted polyrhythms, into the iconic two-note phrase that opens Angelo Badalamenti’s Twin Peaks theme, the subtext screamed. Distant menace seldom hits so close to home.
Csatari and his more-or-less-nine-piece band were really on a roll until the midde of last year, when it suddenly looked like they might be finished. But Csatari dodged a bullet, survived a brain tumor operation and has reemerged with both his chops and his band intact. In an era when New York jazz musicians under forty who can afford to play live regularly are as rare as rent-regulated apartments, that’s a big news.
Csatari’s music sways and careens a little when the whole unit is going full tilt. The game plan seems to be that everybody has license to stray a little but not too far. The result is lot of tense, unresolved close harmonies, making a deliciously uneasy contrast with all the catchy riffs that permeate the mix. Few of those melodies ever return once they’re gone. Csatari can sound like Kenny Burrell or Wes Montgomery if he wants, but he hardly ever does – Americana of all kinds is more his reference point. You could call him a scruffier Bill Frisell if you wanted.
There were more than a few moments throughout this characteristically epic show where the group brought to mind the Grateful Dead – but with two Bob Weirs and no Jerry Garcia. Csatari’s fellow guitarist Julian Cubillos is typically a noisier foil than he was this time out, the two shadowing each other with terse, even flitting riffs from 60s soul, or 70s country, or older blues. Meanwhile, the horn section bubbled and scooched to both sides, usually pretty seamlessly. There wasn’t a lot of soloing. Saxophonist Levon Henry got a bright, cheery one early on, then a trumpeter whose sweet old canine friend had gone onstage and wandered amid the band earlier, joined the melee and contributed a similarly boisterous one of her own.
The whole band weren’t all constantly playing at the same time, either: there were brief, suspenseful moments for keys and rhythm section, and for the two guitars. References to the Dead at their most qawwali-influenced, the Modern Jazz Quartet and the AACM – especially in the most orchestral moments – shifted with remarkable grace for a unit who never appear to be all in the same place at the same time. Yet Csatari always anchored the wafting ambience and frequent gusts with his nonchalantly incisive, tersely resonant flickers of melody.
Csatari’s webpage doesn’t show any upcoming gigs; watch this space. And the free semimonthly outdoor shows out back of Pioneer Works continue this Sunday, Sept 9 at 7:30 PM with an even more careening group, Haitian tropicalia punk band Ram. You’re supposed to rsvp, but you can just as easily show up whenever you want and walk straight in.