Impeccable . . .
Jan P. Dennis | Monument, CO USA | 04/05/2007
(4 out of 5 stars)
". . . but not generally a healthy direction for jazz. What we've got here is stunningly brilliant execution of what I can't help but feel is a dead or at least dying music.
Make no mistake, every one of these cats can play. This disc literally bursts forth, veritably GUSHES, with stunning instrumental acumen from all involved. Let's start with pianist Peter Martin. A N'Awlins staple, he almost defines the casual sophistication of its finest players. Capable of following and subtly embellishing the trickiest of melodic lines, he imbues the proceedings with a casual panache of the highest order, spinning off sublime solos and comping like a demon.
Drummer Gregory Hutchinson should be a name familiar to even casual jazz fans. A young lion of huge chops and consummate taste, he lends weight and consequence to any session he plays on.
Carlos Henriquez, a Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra fixture on bass, brings a deep swing and long history of his instrument stretching from Chambers to Mingus to Haden to the proceedings.
And leader Goines displays brilliance, nay, absolute mastery, on three instruments, tenor and soprano sax and clarinet. Really, I must say there's a kind of pure, unadulterated pleasure listening to him and the group nail song after song.
But, to these ears, at least, they're all tainted by a slavish devotion to The Tradition.
OK. Maybe I'm just a Yahoo. Maybe I don't get it. Maybe the Crescent City is just the absolute Mecca of jazz. Maybe anyone who doesn't pay it homage is just out of it. Maybe everyone from Lester Bowie to the NYJCC is just spinning their wheels.
But I don't think so.
Despite the staggeringly high level of musical accomplishment contained herein, I can't sign on.
Or maybe I can. Increased listenings are beginning to reveal the staggering heights regularly achieved by this band.
A hard-won, though reluctant, ****1/2--and, I'm thinking, probably morphing into the full five not far down the road. Gulp."
Track Listings (9) - Disc #1