Fathers Day B'hash

Bob Moses | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 7, 2009)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sunny Side Records
• ASIN: B001SGEUUG
• Also Available in: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #482,560 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Rakalam Bob Moses is a drummer whose reputation as a top-drawer musician in the '70s has given way to his expertise as an instructor turning out excellent protégés at the New England Conservatory in Boston ever since. His fifth effort as a leader in the decade of the 2000s, he's recruited student performers and recording engineers, adding the veteran saxophonist and bass clarinetist Stan Strickland, and is inspired by his dad, who passed away shortly after these recording were made on Father's Day of 2006. The music is a dense Wall of Sound mostly devoid of strict time, free as in John Coltrane's final phase music, and charged with youthful enthusiasm tempered with the wisdom of the ages. Five saxophonists provide the bricks and mortar, with violin and trumpet also included, to power the precise and urgent, Elvin Jones like drumming of Moses. Limited regard for defined melodies allows the music to breathe organically, best exemplified by three pieces titled "Exhalation" subtitled "Love," "Peace," and "Fire Breath." From meditational moods building in intensity to serene setting up a free bop section, to outspoken clarion horns filling every space, Moses knows where the heart and pulse of this music lies, and delivers it full-force. There are direct references to music originally made by Coltrane or Pharoah Sanders as on the pretty ballad "Father's Day Celebration," the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, and Cecil Taylor. "Our Life" adopts the brittle and free harmelodic approach of Coleman going to a bash, while mbira and vocals, ritualistic and spooky, suggest the multi-kulti style Cherry embraced in his latter period on "A Pure & Simple Being," with the large horn ensemble speaking and chatting in basic tones. Moses takes to the piano in a frantic scramble during "Pollack Springs," rattling overtones keyboard strings while urging the shouting horns into madness. Though individualism is encouraged, the whole of the group is emphasized in the main, with Strickland's bass clarinet leading out introductions, while his tenor and soprano sax play semi-solos supported by the thick sonic landscape. Violinist Andrei Matorin seems to sound as a voice unintegrated while also adding a different spice to the mix, and is the lead voice on the foggy "Duet for Violin & Squeaky Door." Moses himself is on track and in sync all the way, making inroads for his students to follow, and blazing away with the fiery and literate trap drum work that he has exemplified as assimilating bird's wings in flight. This will appeal to listeners of specific taste who enjoy creative, layered, impenetrable music, requiring deep listening and rapt attention. The gifts received upon your paying close attention reveal a unique music experience only Moses can envision and bring.
- Michael G. Nastos --AllMusic.com

Product Description

You can sum up the artistically and spiritually eclectic drummer, composer, educator, and multi-instrumentalist Rakalam Bob Moses in three words: He was there. He was there in the early sixties as a teenaged sideman to Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and as a founding member of the pioneering fusion group Free Spirits, with Larry Coryell. He was there in the seventies when he co-formed another fusion ensemble, Compost, with Jack DeJohnette and worked with Pat Metheny and Jaco Pastorius. He was there in the eighties and nineties with his spectacular Gramavision LPs including When Elephants Dream of Music, and Time Stood Still.

Moses who also plays piano, kalimba, and log drum makes his debut on the Sunnyside label with Father s Day B Hash: an all-encompassing, nine-track recording that documents Moses all-world drumming, laced with subcontinentally-syncopated compositions exploring the bonds of family, the reality of death and the cycle of rebirth with tenor saxophonists/flutists/clarinetists Ommudra Thomas Arabia, Nick Videen, Luis Rosa, Sam Strickland (his life-long collaborator), and Petr Cancura; violinist Andrei Matorin, bassist Justin Purtill, and trumpeter Nicole Rampersaud.

The date [for the session] was June 16th 2006, Father s Day, Moses writes in the CD liner notes, the last for my father, Richard Moses (aka Shompa Lodro, the name given him by Spiritual Master, guitar genius Bhapuji Tisziji Munoz), who passed a month after this recording at the age of 87. For me, this adds a great deal of poignancy and importance to this date.

Indeed, the nine tracks represent a twilight toned, inter-dimensional space where multi-tempoed time signatures, and exotically textured melodic expressions equally and effortlessly reside in the realms of world music and free jazz. I had brought in a few heads/melodies to play, but decided to start with total freedom to see how well we could tune in to each other. Exhaltations #1-3 were the first three pieces played. The only compositional idea on Exhaltation #1 was the word love spoken quietly before we began. Before Exhaltation# 2, the word peace. For Exhaltation#3 (Fire Breath) the idea was to develop rhythmically from a single pitch (A flat). Other tracks are equally ingenious; the percussive pianism of Pollack Swings, the tabla-influenced Moses solo spotlight Drums For Shompa Lodro, the almost Ornette Coleman-ish Our Life, the spectral-stringed Duet For Violin and Squeaky Door and the Ganges-grooved A Pure and Simple Being.

All of his experiences, his brushstrokes of invention and dimension make Rakalam Bob Moses Father s Day B Hash a record of celebration; an aural document that highlights the journey of a musical world traveler that shows no sign of ending soon. In my work ... I ve tried to create an environment that encourages absolute freedom and spontaneity, where karmic gravities can be burned up and released.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars B'hash Ind'heed, October 3, 2009

By 

David Conklin (Albuquerque, NM USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fathers Day B'hash (Audio CD)

Heartily recommended to avant-garde aficionados; others beware! My 5 star rating comes with some reservation, and is mostly based on 6 of the 9 tracks, which provide more than 50 minutes of very good to wonderful music. Two of the other tracks contain lengthy cacophonous maelstroms which, while certainly impressive and worth hearing, are probably not something I'll listen to much in the future. And the third features an overdubbed squeaky door--perhaps enough said.

Bob Moses, who's on the faculty at the New England Conservatory, is an outstanding percussionist. His nine-member group here features veteran multi-reedist Stan Strickland and seven highly talented current or recent students at NEC, who contribute trumpet,violin, bass, and 4(!) more saxes. The music is mostly of a spontaneous improvisational nature, and aligned with the leader's Buddhist philosophy. His liner note states that "the player must leave behind all self, thought, personal agendas or anything they know or have played before...The idea is to meet and play as one from `zeroness'..." The result is some (mostly) fairly intense, highly spiritual, and beautiful music. The recording and meticulous engineering provide a nice transparent sound, where all the instruments can be heard quite clearly.