qertaudit.blogg.se

• #Jibber jazz festival full

Though each tune, listened to in isolation, has impressive skill and merit, something about the whole of this recording does not quite cohere. O, “Maiden”, how can it be that you were written by a drummer when you are so delicate and stately, barely needing drums to make your point at all? And that you give both Rubalcaba and Potter their best, most honest features of the concert? Eric Harland, let your talent ring.Īnd yet, Monterey Quartet, would I be terribly remiss in noting, despite all this acclaim and genuine praise, that there is something not quite riveting about your live recording at the 2007 Monterey Jazz Festival? I fear this heresy, but, pray, read on. How embarrassed I am, Eric Harland, that I did not know more about you, as your tunes for this jazz festival concert may be the most interesting of the session. Rubalcaba, I have wronged you in my heart in the past.Īnd then, truly, there is Eric Harland! The least known member of this all-star band, put together just for this festival but since become big in its own right. For isn’t your tune “Otra Mirada” a lovely ballad with a set of intriguing harmonies? And do I not hear something marvelous and abstract about your playing, where you seem to be thinking through your improvisations with real intelligence, despite your prodigious technique? Mr. O, Gonzalo Rubalcaba! I tend to think of you as a fleet-fingered Cuban with a tendency to over-ornament your jazz playing.

And “Ask Me Why” closes the recording with a nervously fun note. “Minotaur” gets its Latin groove on and it lets you move around the notes with muscular herky-jerky-ness. And your jazz compositions are surprising and angular, with a sense of great energy. And you seem to play with everyone these days without allowing even one appearance to seem perfunctory. Will it displease you, Chris Potter, if I mention that you seem like a player with a nice wide Michael Brecker streak - particularly the way you are able to bring every solo to an ecstatic climax? I mean this as high praise. And your two-and-a-half minute bass introduction to “Veil of Tears” is not boring, which is - praise be! - unusual for bass solos.Īnd, truly, O, Chris Potter, your righteous tenor saxophone is an insistent and lyrical wonder that combines keening urgency and a true sense of surprise. On your composition “Step To It” you get things grooving with a funky, octave-laced bass vamp that locks into a hip melody. And you play a cool-looking acoustic bass that has a very resonant sound.

And you announce the songs during this live concert recording in said accent, making everything seem just a little more like Masterpiece Theatre. You anchor the band like a wise man with a subtle English accent. O, Dave Holland, you are the leader of the band, and yet you are a bass player, and that’s unusual. And watching those notes whiz out into the air is dazzling! Modern jazz music, I am impressed (and intimidated) by you!

#Jibber jazz festival full

O, modern jazz music! You contain a barrel full of notes, don’t you? Those who play you must have consummate skill and imagination with which to zip those many notes around like a Superball thrown in a racquetball court by Sandy Koufax. I thrill to your skill… and maybe I stop listening just a little bit. O, Monterey Quartet! How splendidly you play your jazz instruments! I listen to you with wonder and some exhaustion.