How to decipher Will Be Fire, the title of this exploratory, raw, practically booty-shaking release by master trombonist Joe Fiedler and his New Quartet?

The phrase is broken English, from the mouth of an athlete discussing the need to step it up, to bring one’s A-game. That’s more easily done when your partners are electric guitar slinger Pete McCann, veteran tuba virtuoso Marcus Rojas and responsive, beat-conjuring drummer Jeff Davis.

Using this instrumentation — with tuba in what is typically the bass role — Fiedler seeks to capture a spirit present in the late Arthur Blythe’s Columbia releases of the late ’70s and early ’80s: Lenox Avenue Breakdown, Illusions and Blythe Spirit. “What really inspired me was the incredible elasticity of the group interplay,” Fiedler says. “But most of all it’s the orchestration, with drums, tuba and electric guitar as the foundation — amazing!”

Heightening the spice and bite of Will Be Fire, for the first time in Fiedler’s recorded output, is a Line 6 effects unit on the trombone, giving melodic themes and solo lines an abiding sonic nastiness. The choice isn’t out of the blue — it’s a logical step for Fiedler in a long process of experimentation with timbre, mainly through varied use of mutes and multiphonic extended techniques.

“On ‘Squirrel Hill’ I’m using multiphonics and effects and I love that, so to be continued,” Fiedler says. “I felt it was time to push forward in finding avenues for sonic diversity. I’ve been struck recently by how codified the modern jazz trombone has become. I wanted something new, both for the trombone and the ensemble, something that didn’t really sound like anything else. Along with the electronics, I also consciously tried to incorporate techniques and textures I’ve been using for years in more open settings, such as ‘against the grain’ playing pioneered by Roswell Rudd, into a more mainstream setting.”

1. Will Be Fire
2. How’s Skippy
3. Graffiti’s
4. Merger
5. Song For Coop
6. Squirrel Hill
7. Crooked
8. W. 21st St.
9. Peek Power Box

The album opens on the rousing titular Will Be Fire and the strident How’s Skippy and they are backed by the funkily grooved Graffiti’s, the jagged Merger, and then we get the ornate beauty of the aching ballad Song For Coop.
Along next is the forthright Squirrel Hill which is itself followed seamlessly by the impassioned Crooked, the recording rounding out all too soon with the warm and snugly W. 21st St., closing on the precociously perky Peek Power Box.

The New York Times has pinpointed a “feeling for a rugged but jaunty experimentalism” in the music of trombone veteran Joe Fiedler, a figure as esteemed in New York jazz circles as he is in the Afro-Caribbean and pop scenes. He’s an adventurous improviser and bandleader whose recordings range from solo trombone (The Howland Sessions) to quintet (Like, Strange) to trombone/tuba quartet (Big Sackbut, Sackbut Stomp, Live in Graz — “the intersection of gutbucket blues and avant-garde audacity,” JazzTimes) to chordless trio (The Crab, Sacred Chrome Orb, I’m In, Joe Fiedler Plays the Music of Albert Mangelsdorff).

Musicians:
Joe Fiedler/Trombone & Electronics
Pete McCann/Guitar
Marcus Rojas/Tuba
Jeff Davis/Drums

www.joefiedler.com