Latest releases reviewed
JOHN HOLLENBECK LARGE ENSEMBLE A Blessing Omnitone ****
Drummer and composer Hollenbeck, who counts Brookmeyer, Schneider, McNeely, Ligeti, Gil Evans and Brian Eno as influences, uses the conventional big band basics, plus the voice of Theo Bleckmann, in decidedly unconventional ways. Relatively straight-ahead funk, reggae, free improv and classical elements are blended in what is, notwithstanding some soloists, essentially a composer's work throughout. They yield beauties in the 16-minute Irish Blessing, the chant-like The Music of Life, Folkmoot and the quirky April in Reggae, with its adeptly kaleidoscopic mix of ensemble and brief solos. Equally impressive, but vastly different are Weiji, Abstinence and RAM, each a rigorously controlled combination of the free and the formal. And it's all done with striking clarity, authority and originality.
www.omnitone.com
Ray Comiskey
RANDY SANDKE The Mystic Trumpeter Evening Star ****
Trumpeter Sandke wrote and arranged all the music for this new CD, using a new system of extended, or metatonal, harmony. The title piece is a six-part programme suite, using a quintet with himself, multi-reedman Scott Robinson and a Ted Rosen- thal/Greg Cohen/Dennis Mackrel rhythm section, evoking poet Walt Whitman's reflections on the joys and tribulations of life; on the second work, Symphony for Six, trombonist Wycliffe Gordon is added. Both invite the listener into a musical universe full of harmonic and linear surprise, odd, but disconcertingly logical, in which perhaps Sandke, Rosenthal and Cohen seem most at home with the wider options of the system; certainly, Sandke and Rosenthal's startling solo contributions fit more seamlessly into the fabric of each work, especially the second, on which the ensembles are particularly crisp.www.lpb.com/eveningstar
Ray Comiskey
RICHARD NELSON Moment's Notice (no label) ***
Pedal steel guitarist Nelson, better known here in other genres, plunges into jazz at the deep end with originals by Coltrane, Shorter, Parker, Monk and Lee Morgan, plus four standards. Backing him is the Phil Ware Trio, with Dave Redmond (bass) and Kevin Brady (drums), and guest Hugh Buckley (guitar). Capable player that Nelson is, he doesn't swing or solo with quite the same fluency as the others, and his instrument inescapably conjures up visions more of Hawaii than the mainstream jazz ambience so firmly in evidence here. Both Ware and Buckley are in fine solo form, and the level of performance is buoyed by a propulsive rhythm section.
Ray Comiskey
