Search - Marty Ehrlich :: New York Child

A great body of work.

greg taylor | Portland, Oregon United States | 11/28/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Marty Ehrlich is one of the great gifts of the contemporary jazz scene. As a sideman, his presence is an indicator that the music will invariably be of high quality and that his own contributions will probably be one of the strengths of the album. There is another reviewer (I believe of one of Mike Nock's New York Jazz Collective albums) who gets it just right. Ehrlich is always present, never rote. He always trys to fit into the leader's scheme and use it as a mean to present his own aesthetic.
He has been a long time member of Julius Hemphill's saxophone sextet (I cannot recommend highly enough Fat Man and the Hard Blues) and now leads that congregation. Still presenting that great man's music.
As a leader or co-leader, he has worked in many contexts. One of the best has been his sometime quintet with Stan Strickland on tenor and soprano. On this disc the quintet is rounded out very nicely by Michael Cain on the piano, Michael Formanek on the bass and Bill Stewart on the drums. Mr. Ehrlich is himself heard on clarinets and saxophones of various ranges. By the way, his tone on the bass clarinet that he plays on the cover of Hemphill's Georgia Blue is a thing of great beauty. Liquid, woody, dark and aching.
I will not bore you with a description of every song. These guys are alternately bluesy, soulful, oblique, and always a disciplined tight group. They listen to each other, they like each other's playing and they sound really good together. Strickland and Ehrlich are one of the great combinations in comtemporary jazz.
Think of this album as an intro to one of the great bodies of work in contemporary jazz, think of it as a great ensemble playing wonderful tunes and tearing up great solos. Think of it how you will but give it a listen."