Customer Reviews

Come Play With Me

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As most jazz fans know by now, Cuong Vu, avant garde trumpet player extraordinaire, has taken up residence within the Pat Metheny Group, at least for the next Group effort. That portends extremely adventurous music for Metheny & Co. Vu thrives on working without a safety net, and his brilliant sonic explorations on his new CD, "Come Play With Me," suggest that he is ready to take a veritable assembly like PMG and lead it into unexpected vistas. Perhaps instead of "We Live Here" PMG will be titling the new disc, "We're not in Missouri Anymore." For you see, when you listen to Vu, Miles is never far away, especially "Dark Magus" Miles. Especially on this disc! The sense of danger has always run as an under, or even main, current in CDs such as "Bound" and "Pure" but here within "Come Play" Vu offers his undertow right from the start in the "Dreams.." track. Ably assisted by bass player Stomu Takeishi and drummer John Hollenbeck, Vu pursues his muse with an uncompromising intensity. Only Miles ever made music this scary and this beautiful. Perhaps as the drums and bass kick in, it is the strains of Viet Namese traditional music, the court muisc of Hue, that seem to lift the soul and spirit of the Music which has taken Vu into its confidence. When the trio swings into Vina's Lullaby and finishes with Again and Again and Again, it will occur to you how far you have been transported.
Vu is as removed from the Marsalis cookie cutter factory of trumpet playing as Miles was. This is SOUL music, that point in the soul where silence must be honoured, framed, and respected for its ineffable reverence. No one since Miles has caught on to it, and no one plays like Cuong Vu. This is precisely the kind of music Ken Burns would have no idea how to handle.
This is music on which to dwell poetically, as Heidegger might have it, and it is music that suggests that this brilliant young musician may well indeed effect the changes to jazz that the Dark Prince once did.
Whatever happens to the PMG, it will never be the same for its encounter with Cuong Vu. You won't be either. Go listen!

This is it! "Come play" is the masterpiece by a trumpet player who reminds us of those great days in the 70's when Miles was recording such great albuns as "Dark Magus" and "Live-Evil";
I own Vu's first two albuns, but this is the greatest! Beginning your trip with "dreams", Vu takes you to other dimensions, and by the end of the album, you'll feel that need to listen to it "again, and again, and again". Like the other reviewer said, "this is SOUL music". A must.

I really love this CD, As a trumpet player myself, I just love the way he plays, he took a sound that most music teachers would tell you not to make on a trumpet, and made it musical. If you are into interesting music, this ones for you.

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...whether you want to go or not.

I've been a Pat Metheny fan for the past 15 years and had the pleasure of seeing Coung Vu this past year with the Pat Metheny Group. I was awe stricken with his feature spot in the show where he generated impossible trumpet sounds from what seemed to be not of this earth. I had to hear more of this and so bought "Come Play With Me" and find it to be a gripping journey throughout.

The music draws much of it's drive from rock, metal and the avant-garde, balanced with some easy-on-the-ear, pop-type of sounds and at times, some of the beautiful sounds that are usually associated with Pat's music. But with it, Coung paints landscapes that range from glorious beauty to the ugliest of ugly . So ugly that it's beautiful in it's ugliness. It will soothe you then take you to the edge.

This is now one of the best CDs of my collection. I like it so much that I bought his two other fine CDs. And while it's easy to see why Mr. Metheny had to have Coung in his band, Coung shows that he has an entirely different musical vision that sounds like no other style that I've come across.

I recommend this music enough to say that you must own this CD!

No where music. No evolution, no point, no emotion. I like Pat Metheny, I like abstract stuff, avant garde is good but I just don't get this one. I liked seeing Vu perform with Matheny in concert and I was really prepared to enjoy this album given the reviews on the net but I found it disappointing - what can I say? To each his own.

Now go check out some Tim Berne "Fractured Fairy Tales"