Aaron Alexander, Midrash Mish Mosh, Tzadik
New York drummer Alexander and his cohorts run the gamut
of musical styles, all with a switched-on klezmer sensibility, from
amphetamine opener “Kleyzmish Moshpit” (a teenaged Alexander
used to play in Seattle punk bands) to the rousing ensemble choruses
of “Khosn Kalleh Haskalah.” At times the mish mosh might
be something of a non-jazzer’s nightmare,
with decent portions of guitar strangeness from Brad Shepik, but if
you’re up for it there’s a pleasingly off-kilter, dissonant
complexity to the improvisation. More introspective is “Der Rumskisker
Maggid,” dedicated to Alexander’s great great great (count
’em) grandfather, an itinerant preacher in Lithuania. It’s
a track which manages to sound like a
folk song and a Downtown wigout at more or less the same time. Midrash
Mish Mosh is an energizing, carnivalesque, devil-take-the-hindmost disc
of freewheeling modern jazz.