Cunningham / Volt / Serra

The line-up of Cunningham/Volt/Serra is unusual. Mark Cunningham (of Mars, Don King, Blood Quartet, etc.), plays trumpet, and trumpet is also the chosen “axe” of fellow Barcelona underground musician, Pablo Volt (STA, Pope, Barba Corsini...). The third member, Andreu Serra (who also works and records widely as Ubaldo) focuses here on guitar and sax. I'm having a tough time naming another unit with this line-up, and indeed, CVS doesn't sound quite like any other band I can easily conjure.

Both trumpeters work in a hybridized cool/avant tradition. Their lines certainly go “out” at times, but there's none of the smear/fracture of Don Cherry, who is the main model for so many trumpeters. If you need to point fingers, Mark and Pablo's styles might be said to share a resonance with the later work of Bill Dixon, although both of them favor warmer tones. Andreu's approach to both sax and guitar is equally off-center, with outwardly-focused splange of strange but genteel nature.

But this is not a “jazz” album by any means. Cunningham (and his collusionists) have employed jazzoid moves as component parts of an avant/jazz/rock hybrid since the days of Don King (and maybe before.) The avant electronic ages and rockoid forward motion are huge parts of this music's character.

Ad Hoc is just another step on a path with a long, storied history and a luminous, infinite future.

Byron Coley 2022