Customer Reviews

If Summer Had Its Ghosts

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

 

 

With this album, Bill Bruford has finally made the jazz album that has been in him all his life. He has finally managed to fuse all the rhythmic sensibilities he has been exploring into a melodic vehicle that more than sparkles, it sings!

If jazz is about music, then ISHiG is about jazz. Bruford and his mates Towner and Gomez play with such style and sophistication that the listener is drawn in like a lover.

Don't let the apparent "simplicity" of the music fool you: there are many layers to peel away here, and each listen brings a fresh revelation.

As one former colleague of mine would say, this album is gorgeous. There's no other word for it.

I love this album so much. I've heard lots of Bill, practically everything he has recorded and I just appreciate where he's taken me musically over the years as I buy albums because they have his name on them. It's hardly ever a bum steer, but this is especially wonderful because for me it's a new path stylistically and though it's top-drawer playing it's not "challenging." You can just pretty much snuggle right up with it. The title song is one of my favorites and the above mentioned cut is literally therapeutic when I'm stressed-out: It doesn't just soothe it reaches in and validates your humaness at the same time. I had not heard Ralph Towner before this recording and after growing up with Steve Howe and Allan Holdsworth as favorites, his looser style(mainly on twelve-string) is new and refreshing for me. A gem.

This was a welcome surprise, Bill Bruford's first venture into more traditional jazz territory. Ralph Towner is spectacular throughout, and Eddie Gomez plays well with Bruford. Bill's writing has become more concise since the first Earthworks days or the One of a Kind album. Great musicianship makes these well-written songs winners.

I disagree with the assertion that this is not for Towner fans.
It all depends on your expectations. I love this record because
it sounds like nothing else I own, yet the playing is very
familiar. It does not sound "ECM"ish; much fresher to my ears.

I missed this when it first came out and am very glad
to have discovered it; a really unique-sounding record that
stands up to repeated listening. Reminds me of the first
time I heard Steps Ahead (the first Elektra album) in that sense;
perhaps it's Eddie Gomez' abilities that deserve more credit!

Here's yet another excellent album among many Bill Bruford has been associated with. He's the only ex-member of Yes to have produced consistently high-quality work for the past 30 years. Bruford may not have the super-chops of a Colaiuta, Weckl or Gadd but he's more clever than all of them. Far from being "out-of-his-league" as another reviewer suggests, he creates his own league and unique field of play for his formidable accomplices. He could easily try to show off with flash or worse yet try to play like a typical jazz drummer and have this record sound like so many hundreds of others and put all the pressure on Towner to make it work. Instead he penetrates these tunes like a Swiss watch that can melt and bend as in a Dali painting. Bruford sticks firmly to his calculated and finely-tuned un-loose style but this is the restraint he needs to slowly unwind his drumming art besides providing a unique strict-timed background for Towner and Gomez, especially Towner to feed off. This makes the record sound 'one-of-a-kind,' a perfect fusion and blend of styles rather than tied to any one discipline. All that wouldn't matter if the compositions weren't excellent and here you have them. Every track is a great piece played with consummate skill by all three players with just the right amount of looseness and improvisation to maximize its potential, if not quite maximizing it to the transcendent masterpiece level you might hear on Towner's "Solstice." The last track is kind of out-of-place with the rest of the material and a bit more rock-oriented and closer to the late-70s Bruford-Band material but still a fun listen and nice way to close the album with a bit of a bang. The sound quality on the album is way above the average and on par with ECM recordings although without the often suffocating sameness of high quality recording you hear on some of the ECM albums.

I have never heard of Bill Bruford until I chanced this album on an intuitional whim. I was looking for something entirely acoustic with a tinge of acid jazz, and I found it! I love this album, and so do my friends (we are 23 years old). I just wish there were more songs on the album. As long as this guy (or who ever is composing) continues at this level of creativity, the songs are bound to be full of spirit.

I know some people would object to the subject above. But frankly I never like Jazz before I listened to this CD. I just realized that Jazz can be played beautifully.

Any suggestion which CD/artist that is very much similar to the music in this CD ? I know it's not the type of music that Bill/Ralph usually play.

Towner sounds a bit lost here, to me. He doesn't do antthing he hasn't done better before.

I like Bruford and Gomez' playing but I find this record lacks energy. It sounds very much to me like various 1970's ECM and Oregon recordings. Bill was getting his feet on the ground well though and I like his subsequent Earthworks efforts very much. Best track is "Never the Same Way Once" which was redone more impressively by Earthworks after this.

Have to admit this is from just listening to "Never The Same way Once", but having only discovered Ralph Towner tonight--as a guitarist--I find that Bruford's workmanlike chops pale into insignificance with his co-padres . . . and especially Towner on piano!! I playing drums would probably sound good with these two musicians (Gomez and Towner).

The talent is frightening, and Bill is out of his depth, though he does very well (can't comment on the rest of the album).

However, I find it very hard to believe that Bill Bruford "wrote" this song . . . maybe made suggestions and let the masters take over.

Ralph Towner . . . a better pianist than guitarist? Awesome.