Search - Michael Moriarty :: Sweet & Gritty

Headstrong, as actor or musician.

R. J. Maxwell | Deming, NM | 09/22/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This trio isn't going to be Easy Listening. You won't hear this kind of music (written by Moriarty) in a piano bar. It's cerebral and pretty demanding. If you can think of a dimension, running from Liberace through, say, Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans, to Cecil Taylor somewhere out there in the stratosphere, I guess Moriarty goes beyond the middle two but stops short of Taylor. The tunes are not easy to whistle. They'll never be pop hits. But they're cool -- kind of bebop -- and notes follow one another unexpectedly. The down tempo songs are pretty but still not Irving Berlin. Moriarty has a tendency to interrupt a traditional-sounding riff with sudden plunges into bass chords that leave you kind of stunned. His voice is somewhere between a whisper and a croak but it hangs on the proper note as it should. This is pretty original stuff. I realize he's said he learned a lot of Nat "King" Cole but you wouldn't be able to tell it from this modernistic album. Cole he's not, but he may enjoy hearing Herbie Hancock. I liked it. I think it would have been great to listen to while stoned back in the 60s. Almost every note is a surprise."