In Deep End Dance

Julian Priester | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 3, 2002)
• Original Release Date: September 3, 2002
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Conduit Records
• ASIN: B00006JSME
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #456,909 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

This historical and much anticipated recording is jazz legend Julian Priester’s first CD as a leader in 25 years. It is also the first release from Seattle’s new creative music label, Conduit Records. Julian’s expansive career spans five decades of playing with such notables as Sun Ra, Duke Ellington, Max Roach, Herbie Hancock, Dave Holland, Sam Rivers, Reggie Workman and Wayne Horvitz. Featuring all original music and exceptional new talent, In Deep End Dance continues Julian’s tradition of being at the forefront of creative jazz music.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One for the ages, January 1, 2004

By 

Jan P. Dennis "Longboard jazzer" (Monument, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: In Deep End Dance (Audio CD)

I stumbled onto this disc in the Bloomington, IN, Borders store. It was, as my brilliant and sardonic daughter of 19 observed as I emerged from said emporium with this and another disc (Kieran Overs's gem, For the Record, also recently reviewed) firmly clutched in my hot little hand, "A little Christmas present from me to me." I rationalized these purchases because I figured I'd never be able to find them again in any of the record stores to which I have ready access, and I didn't know if such obscure recordings would even be available on Amazon.

Thankfully, I hit a home run. I purchase a good amount of jazz "hearing unheard," that is, without knowing what it sounds like. I do this because there's an awful lot of jazz that you just can't sample aforehand. I suspect my average is well above 50 percent winners, and I do exercise a good deal of care in my purchases, accessing countless years of stored memory relating to various and sundry obscure jazz artists, who they've played with, etc.

OK, enough of that.

This is a truly marvelous disc. Featuring five Priester compositions and one each by his three bandmates, it presents a varied and entirely enjoyable modern jazz soundscape of the highest order. What I especially like about it is its deep dancing sensibility. In Deep End Dance, indeed!! Also its playfulness. Although music of extreme complexity, it is never less than completely accessible. Priester has cracked one of the most difficult of musical codes--he's figured out how to be beautiful and obscure and intricate and rhythmic and listenable all at once.

A good deal of this has to do with his playing partners, all of whom are new to me, and all of whom are startlingly imaginative players. Let's start with Dawn Clement in the piano chair. This young woman is, simply, a monster player. Possessed of an uncanny lilting rhythmic sense, she comps with authority and provides the heart of the rhythmic pulse. I detect something of the great Kirk Lightsey in her playing, but she has already achieved a remarkably mature voice. Listen to her astounding solo in the middle of "End Dance." I unashamedly bow to such ravishing pianism. Deft, lyrical, percussive, lilting, mesmerizing. Plus she plays a mean blues. And swings to die for. Also check out her intro to her own composition, "A Delicate Balance." I'm ordering her new disc, Hush, also on Conduit Records, as soon as I finish this review. "End Dance," by the way, represents a high point for me in the history of recorded jazz; the closing band interaction boggles the mind.

Her bandmates match her brilliance. Byron Vannoy has a unique concept on drums. Check out how he closes out "Mejatoto" with a two-fisted bashing that strikes fear into the hearts of the timid but absolutely fits the mood of the piece. The other players just drop out, slackjawed, one imagines, at the singularilty of sounds coming from the drums chair. Geoff Harper, a giant of a man, has a bass sound to match. There's a fundament, a grounding, a solidity every bit as deep as Charlie Haden or Dave Holland (although he sounds nothing like either) that gives this band a monster gravitas. And he's that rare player who can make a bass solo really, really interesting. His solo at the end of "A Delicate Balance" is one of the finest I've ever heard, and he proves that wasn't a fluke by raising earlobes with a similar stunner two-thirds of the way thrugh "End Dance."

Julian Priester is certainly no slouch either on trombone. Occupying territory somewhere between the all-out free approach of George Lewis and the lyricism of Steve Turre, he has a very burnished yet quite declamatory tone. Sound a little oxymoronic? Maybe, but it works spectacularly.

Anyway, this entire project's from out of who knows where. It represents the most appealing, most accomplished, and most satisfying jazz I've heard in years.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars best of 2002 you probably won't hear, January 14, 2003

By 

"deez4545" (Iowa City, IA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Deep End Dance (Audio CD)

Julian Priester has consistently recorded music of high quality over the span of his career. This is a wonderful yet subtle new release, the first on yet another in the growing list of independent labels serving (and serving well!) the community of jazz musicians and their audiences. There's plenty of trombone here; yet Priester allows the quartet a lot of space. As Priester writes in the liner notes, "As jazz performers, we depend on each other for inspiration." Like his recordings with Reggie Workman and Sam Rivers, there's a strong sense of collaboration among musicians here. I find this one especially close to the out-of-print Polarization by Priester's Marine Intrusion ensemble, yet as satisfying as that date. Hopefully, this will be only the first of a succession of jazz out of Seattle. Strongly recommended, especially for listeners who enjoy the quiet spaces that musicians love to explore.

4 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Dad is crazy, January 15, 2004

By 

Infinite Catalyst "C. Robert Dennis" (Monument, CO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Deep End Dance (Audio CD)

The man's whose review you read below me is my father
as well as crazy.
Listen to his words well
because all of the prophets were crazy.
Duke Ellington wasn't crazy
but he was an aural prophet.
Remind my Dad every once in a while not to give five stars to everything.