From Jazziz
It's hard to say whether saxophonist-composer Johnston has a good ear for movies or a good eye for music. Either way, this CD of music for the silent movies of Georges Méliès perfectly captures the humor of the French film pioneer's short, whimsical fantasies. Johnston's music underscores the action the way good film music should, but it also adds a post-modern element of ironic commentary on the film's inevitable anachronisms and genre conventions.
Johnston's playful warping of old forms rescues the music from simple nostalgia. For instance, "Trip to the Moon" cycles through a march, a tango, and a fox trot, with quiet interludes for piano and vibes playing in a two-beat rhythm, but the melodies are full of angular leaps and little dissonances that are closer to music at the turn of this century than the turn of the last one. And Satan sounds like one smooth dude as the band swings with jaunty insouciance through "The Merry Frolics of Satan." "Journey Across the Impossible" sounds like the most thoroughly modern cut with agitated collective blowing over a tuba bass pattern. Johnston's Transparent Quartet, with Joe Ruddick on piano and baritone sax, Mark Josefsberg on vibes, and David Hofstra on bass and tuba handle the scores with breezy clarity and deadpan humor, seamlessly blending improvising and score interpretation. A video of these film treasures with this music would be the ideal way to appreciate Johnston's achievement, but if you close your eyes, the music conjures up vivid images on its own.
--- Ed Hazell, JAZZIZ Magazine Copyright © 2000, Milor Entertainment, Inc.
