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THIEFS at Strathmore Friday, March 1

If you’re going to call a performance series Friday Night Eclectic, why stop with making it eclectic merely once a week? It’s when you bring in artists who can be moment-to-moment eclectic—so even once the show’s underway, you never quite know what you’ll get—that you have truly bold programming. That’s how Strathmore has outdone itself by presenting THIEFS. The collective trio (drummer/vocalist Guillermo E. Brown, saxophonist Christophe Panzani, bassist Keith Witty) makes a glorious jumble. In their hands, acoustic jazz, hip-hop, soul, ambient, and dance music all wander freely through shifting environments: acoustic and electric, improvisation and composition, slow and fast, harsh and mellow, instrumental and vocal. But just as a Duchamp collage still bears the artist’s stamp, this sonic free-for-all manages to emerge sounding wholly, and only, like THIEFS. That’s how you do eclectic.

By Michael J. West • March 1, 2013

Washington City Paper

CD/LP/Track Review

Thiefs (2013)

By 

MARK F. TURNER, 

Published: March 3, 2013

What might seem like a grammatical gaffe in the self-titled debut of Thiefs is not an oversight. What's more striking is the music from the forward-thinking trio of Guillermo E Brown, bassist Keith Witty, and saxophonist Christophe Panzani; a group whose combined resumes include work with Carla Bley Big Band, French hip-hop outfit Hocus Pocus, Vijay Iyer and the late David S. Ware.

The project was created by the sponsorship of a French American Jazz Exchange grant, a joint program of FACE (French American Cultural Exchange) and the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation. The fruit of the labor is palpable—a release that is appealing to a variety of persuasions but not easily categorized. The seminally-minded artists and producers create an electro-acoustic atmosphere of stimulating themes that encompasses everything from sweaty drum-n-bass grooves in the opening track to the exploration of avant-garde pop and jazz in "Olive Island."

This cauldron of processed and real sounds is seamlessly blended into wiry compositions of jazz, pop and electronica as the trio exploits the use of technological tools while displaying their instrumental chops. The vortex of "Hurricane Daze" swirls samples, loops, and varied noises into a gritty dance rhythm, whereas "Sans Titre (Huile Sur Toile)" is a rousing acoustic track with impressive work from French accordionist Vincent Peirani. The lines are at times blurred but the music always grooves.

The vocal selections, where Brown proves a talented and empathetic singer, make the set even more intriguing by artfully balancing music with unconventional lyrics and edginess in "The World Without Us" and the poignant "Daybaby" which Witty wrote on the day he and his wife confirmed that a baby was on the way. "TWWU (Postlude)" evokes a trippy 1970's Funkadelic and Björk-ish vibe reminiscent of Brown's eclectic pop band/alter-ego—Pegasus Warning.

The trio's statement that "THIEFS is a grammatically incoherent jazz bastardization" is true to form and results in an enjoyable debut that is both exploratory and modernistic.

All About Jazz

MUSIC / POST NO BILLSThe jazz-electronic-funk-whatsit of Thiefs

Posted by Peter Margasak on 02.21.13 at 04:26 PM

(…)

More recently Brown has found a pretty strong way to combine all of his multifarious interests in a single project, a trio called Thiefs (the misspelling is intentional); the band also includes bassist Keith Witty, who's played with everyone from Anthony Braxton to Amel Larrieux, and the French reedist Christophe Panzani. Next week the group will release its eponymous debut on Brown's own Melanie Harmonique label, and it's been growing on me. In the loosest sense it reminds me of some of the things Robert Glasper Experiment has been doing, colliding jazz and uncut contemporary R&B, although Thiefs eschew the commercial glint that marked the pianist's 2012 album Black Radio. But Brown sings on a number of pieces, while others feature Panzani's saxophone getting the electronic effect treatment. Some tracks traffic in hard instrumental funk, while others stutter and jab on tightly coiled programmed rhythms. A piece like "Olive Island," which has previously been recorded as a Pegasus Warning track, is more of an abstract soul-pop ballad. The group makes its Chicago debut on Saturday night at Mayne Stage. Below you can check out one of the more jazz-focused tracks, "Doute/s."

The Chicago Reader

Interview | Thiefs rob concepts from all realms of the avant-garde

Posted on February 28, 2013 by CapitalBop | 1 Comment

Thiefs — Christophe Panzani, Guillermo E. Brown and Keith Witty.

by Giovanni Russonello
Editorial board

When an artistic community – creators, fans, commentators, patrons – finds some consensus about its present state, that comes with a handful of benefits, some of which can seem like burdens. For one: It sets everyone up to move right along, to the next battle or idea or flare-up. In jazz, we’ve recently broken past the notion that we might invent some form of aluminum siding that would keep out the influence of other, developing musics. Most of the major acts you hear about today – your Robert Glaspers, Esperanza Spaldings, Rudresh Mahanthappas – are chasing some earnest blend that places jazz alongside other established frameworks (hip-hop, soul, Indian classical music).

Don’t get comfy quite yet. Now we reckon with the next level up. From the look of things, that’s where you’d find a group like Thiefs. They’re thinking about jazz reluctantly, drowning it in forms of music that also shy from the spotlight. Thiefs, who perform this Friday at the Mansion at Strathmore, are a sax-bass-drums trio, to put it lazily. They’re really not that at all. All three members – the drummer Guillermo E. Brown, the bassist Keith Witty and the saxophonist Christophe Panzani – supplement their analog work with electronics. Brown puts a particular emphasis on those extensions, and on some tracks he sings. (Often, his voice sounds like a bad omen, almost spoken, with a tone of compunction.)

The mélange they’re going for has to do with experimental fringes: electronic music, post-hip-hop, art rock, minimalism, modern poetry. Rudy Van Gelder, the famous jazz producer, drew out sonic atmosphere with the placement of his microphones and the contours of his studio. On their forthcoming debut album, Thiefs do it with samples of natural sounds, clipped speech, bubbling electronics and muffled horn lines. You can find some of the old ideas about saxophone trios that John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins and Ornette Colemanstarted working out in the 1950s and ’60s, but you’ll have to dig for them. (You might hear the beginning of “Olive Island” – Panzani’s saxophone over a sitar-like loop – as a bit of reverential game-playing with Coltrane’s “Alabama.”)

All three members are jazz stalwarts, but have followed their curiosities elsewhere, too. Brown was a member of the avant-garde saxophonist David S. Ware’s band, and has worked with the pianist and conceptualist Vijay Iyer, the poet Saul Williams, and others – in addition to producing his own electronic solo albums. Witty focuses much of his attention on the improvised music avant-garde, working with folks like Anthony Braxton and Matana Roberts. Panzani, who lives in Paris, has toured with the Carla Bley Big Bandand plays in the French hip-hop group Hocus Pocus. I was able to catch up with all three members of the band over the course of a couple phone conversations; we talked about their synergy, the new record, and the joys of fighting with each other all the time.

Capital Bop

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