Sharks
Ever since I got Yuganaut’s first record, I’ve had this idea in my head. It’s stupid, embarrassing really, but
I can’t help it. I imagine these three grown men traveling through space in a compact Yugoslavian-made
car packed full of instruments. Like I said, it’s stupid, based on a misconstruing of the name of the defunct
East European auto company which to the best of my knowledge never made a deep space compatible
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang anyway, but what can you do. Sometimes the brain gets caught up in ridiculous
things, much like the way you might be singing “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” to yourself right now.
All of this is mistaken, misinformed, and hardly the stuff of good liner note
writing. But too late (if there’s such a thing as “late”). Along the space-time
continuum, Yuganaut is double-parked in the time zone, or traveling at light
speed in the HOV lane. I’m not sure ? mixed metaphors always confuse
me. But I do know this, because I asked: Stephen Rush, Tom Abbs and
Geoff Mann are Yuganauts, which is to say astronauts or cosmonauts of the
highest order, traveling along the furthest reaches of that which we call time,
or which in Hindu philosophy is known as the yuga, that being any one of
the four epochs into which the successive eras of existence in the universe
are divided. Which is to say the trio must have quite a view from its flying
car!
So let’s direct this airborne Yugo from the furthest reaches and back toward South Asia, to India and the
mighty Ganges. I suggest listening to the first half of Sharks before departure ? the taut acoustic
interplay will keen your senses for the journey ? and reserve the second half for road music (not that
there will be any roads). The swirls of “See Saw” will break us through the atmosphere, the floating, alien
ambience of “Local Motive” will help us acclimate to zero gravity. And then the exhilarating mix of Moog
and violin against propulsive drumming on “Vger” as we approach warp speed, engaging the photon force
of “Wrechwork” when we hit hyper-space (or is it hyper-time?). Our approach to the big river will then be
set to the wistful melody of “Again, and Sweetly,” a piece featuring Rush’s elegant playing of the Fender
Rhodes.
The album’s closing piece is, in fact, inspired by the Ganges, the river which supports one of the planet’s
highest densities of people and yet is one of its most polluted. Rush has spent stretches of time (and
Yuganauts, as we’ve discovered, can stretch time quite adeptly) near its banks in Varanasi. “It’s a scary
town,” he says. “But I really think I understand why the Ganges is sacred ? to the point that my poor kids
will take my dust when I am gone and go there and dump me in.” Varanasi is often considered to be the
most sacred of Hindu cities and the waters of the Ganges to bring spiritual purification, so let’s take
advantage of this vantage and learn a little more about the hidden Hindu agenda of the Yuganaut Space-
Time Program.
“The influence isn’t intentional or deliberate,” says Rush. So OK, no hidden agenda. Sorry. Go on. “It’s
more the idea of time (yuga theory) and intersecting circles, or moments. Most of the tracks on the album
? take “Zhu,” for instance ? start with a highly defined moment, or sound. The first person sticks with
that, another joins in, complementing (or contradicting) that sound, giving it a whole different meaning,
and so on. This becomes the basis for listening, composing, playing, all of it. And this is exactly the idea
of yuga theory: focusing on your own breath, then realizing that in that moment we are and are not. It
ultimately is about the intersection of human beings.”
These three human have, needless to say, intersected from divergent points. Rush is a Professor at the
University of Michigan, where he works in an interdisciplinary program that incorporates students of
music, dance, art and engineering. Geoff Mann started guitar lessons when he was 7, but soon switched
to drums and studied under the great Andrew Cyrille (no doubt with some influence from his father, the
flutist Herbie Mann). Tom Abbs has been a driving force in New York for 20 years, playing Lawrence D.
“Butch” Morris, Charles Gayle, Daniel Carter, Roy Campbell, Cooper-Moore and many others as well as
being a tireless organizer of concerts, festivals, recordings and children’s workshops.
These human beings intersect with not just a variety of inspirations, but a variety of instruments as well, in
addition to a wisdom and compassion that belies such traditional jazz notions as “frontman” and “soloist.”
But the intersection is not only theirs, it’s yours as well, while listening, focusing, drifting, contemplating
and traveling through time. Forty minutes pass, as if guided by some unseen force, while you play this
record. You have traveled through time, and space. But you know that already. I might have been wrong
about the flying car, but the itinerary remains the same.
- Kurt Gottschalk

Calling the three members of Yuganaut “multi-instrumentalists” is a little too easy. What is needed is some kind of word that would connote being multiple bands. Between them they could be a small brass group, an electric chamber ensemble or a straight-ahead jazz trio. But such formal confines may not leave room for the moments of playfulness or the passages of spacey psychedelia that sneak in between their evocative and highly original sounds. Between them, band members Stephen Rush, Tom Abbs and Geoff Mann play Fender Rhodes and Moog synthesizer; trumpet, trombone and tuba; bass, cello and violin; and drums, toys and didgeridoo. Does that sound streamlined? Their previous release also included mandolin, euphonium and vibes.

More important than the listing of implements is the fact that the three gentlemen of Yuganaut are more than conscientious about leaving room in the music, not just for each other but to let the music grow. Between them they can boast of Reggie Workman’s tutelage, performance with the Warsaw National Symphony and membership in the Fela-inspired Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra. Which is to say there is tradition, formalism, groove and a sense of fun at play. They are at core, perhaps, a jazz band; but being a jazz band means (or should mean) that anything is possible. There’s ritual, there’s storytelling, they’re contemplative, extrapolative, expressive, even impressive. Yuganaut is not here to be pigeon-holed. They’re just here to play for you.

Yuganaut’s first album, This Musicianship, was released on ESP-Disk in 2008.