  |
|
|
 |
|
CD |
| 2.541 Ft
|
|
| 1. | I Don't Know This World Without Don Cherry
|
| 2. | Nock Down Under
|
| 3. | Don't Leave Me
|
| 4. | New Morning of the Dream
|
| 5. | Indifference
|
| 6. | El Nino
|
| 7. | Legacy
|
| 8. | Crucible
|
Jazz / Contemporary Jazz
Recorded: Apr 11-12, 1996
The New York Jazz Collective
Marty Ehrlich (alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet); James Zollar (trumpet, flugelhorn); Ray Anderson (trombone); Mike Nock (piano); Michael Formanek (acoustic bass); Pheeroan Ak Laff (drums)
It could be said that Mike Nock began recruiting players for this band in the early 1970s, during his San Francisco days. Bassist Michael Formanek, then but a home-town teen, says that hearing Nock inspired him to pursue a living in music.
This would have been toward the end of the all-too-brief lifespan of The Fourth Way, a quartet Nock co-founded, one which evolved its own creative language between or beyond structure and freedom. The Fourth Way's sound was as distinctively adventurous as its longer-lived peers on the cutting edge of the day, fitting like a glove between the acoustic proclivities of Oregon and the amplified excursions of Weather Report. The Fourth Way covered plenty of waterfront at both ends of the dynamic spectrum, letting the moment inspire what would follow.
In that regard, Nock hasn't changed. He has grown, and this music is a progress report from which I gather that life has been interesting and that things have gone well. He's always been hard to pigeonhole, not surprising for someone who taught himself, through hard work on his own, and learning on the bandstand, to be a sharing part of a whole (therein lies the essence of jazz) before formal musical education. He's done school, too, and in fact now holds a faculty position at the Sydney Conservatorium.
Looking at the globe, one sees that Nock couldn't have gone much further from Australia to make this album without again getting closer to his current home, but then New York remains, for better or for worse, the hub of the jazz wheel. As time goes on, though, arguments against New York as centre-of-the-jazz-universe grow stronger, due to artists such as Nock.
Really, all Nock had to do was look up some old mates, and he knew who to call. "My idea," says Nock, "was to put together a representative group of the New York 'new music' thing, independent musicians with roots in both the new music and the tradition."
To say he succeeded would be an understatement.
Multi-instrumentalist Marty Ehrlich was Nock's first choice. Their work together goes back to the late 1970s on Nantucket Island. This latest collaboration raises their discourse to another higher level: like Nock, Ehrlich is a good listener, to his colleagues as well as to himself, at all times, and decisive in his contributions, whatever the settings.
For trumpeter Baikida Carroll, this project represents a return after several years off the scene on doctor's orders. The St Louis native, who spent time in Paris before resettling in New York, came in from Woodstock for the sessions, and his time sitting out must have fanned some flames - you'll hear it in his playing. Trombonist Frank Lacy has experience in this sort of sextet context, including a stint as musical director for that distinguished
earn-while-you-learn postgraduate program known as Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.
The aforementioned Formanek, who has his own string of albums with similarly eclectic rosters, anchors it all, with able drumming from
Pheeroan ak Laff or Steve Johns sharing the percussion chair. They have their work cut out for them, and rise to the occasions unforeseeable but beautiful.
The repertoire is all in-house, and this is an ensemble without need of outside sources. Listening to this first collective meeting, I hope it won't be their last.
A tribute to the late trumpeter and jazz icon Don Cherry, this is a more mainstream jazz effort than a progressive or avant one; it is neither overwhelming nor distinct, but it is, nonetheless, finely crafted music, composed in Cherry's spirit. It holds a jazz aesthetic with traces of world music inflections and charts far-reaching and intricate, yet accessible to all. Baikida Carroll takes on the daunting task of assimilating Cherry's personal sound, and he succeeds, especially when his horn is muted. Multi-woodwind master Marty Ehrlich is heartily heard, as is trombonist Frank Lacy, with Mike Nock on piano, Michael Formanek on bass, and Steve Johns or Pheeroan akLaff trading tracks on drums. Nock, the ostensible organizer of this session, also wrote half of the eight cuts. "New Morning of the Dream" sports an Afro-centric beat, with deep, resonant, soulful unison horn lines, and chanting during Nock's solo. "Indifference" has a slight introductory melody initiating Nock's cascading minimal piano and a beautiful horn fanfare leading to a 6/8 bridge; there's also a trombone solo from Lacy that has many bright moments. Nock likes measures of three and six, continuing the trend during "Legacy" and Formanek's similarly stanced "El Nino," with Lacy in flight and Ehrlich's taut alto, loaded with group counterpoint in the coda. Nock also penned "Crucible," which starts out somber, then leads into Native American piano and bass, a march feel, and a clarion horns announcing Ehrlich's dancing bass clarinet. Two pieces have Carroll featured prominently on his compositions. With a slight Brazilian rhythm, "Nock Down Under" launches his piquant trumpet, slightly overblown and Cherry-esque. He is more plaintive during "Don't Leave Me," a lustrous ballad with, again, Nock's waterfall of piano work. The title track is a well-wrought theme for Cherry written by Ehrlich in his and Ornette Coleman's harmolodic image. Quirky melody snippets cue drum breaks by akLaff and back and forth. A free pre-bridge leads to bass clarinet and bass struts and dancing piano from Nock, while Carroll and Lacy chat amongst themselves. The music world without Don Cherry is certainly a diminished planet, but it's good to know that there are those who recognize what he contributed. This should be the first of several tributes to his muse. Recommended.
---Michael G. Nastos, allmusic |
|
CD bolt, zenei DVD, SACD, BLU-RAY lemez vásárlás és rendelés - Klasszikus zenei CD-k és DVD-különlegességek |  | | Webdesign - Forfour Design |
|
|
