Customer Reviews

Moss

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I need to preface my comments with the fact that vocal ensemble music is by far my favorite musical genre. That being said I have become quite jaded with the offerings of the last 10 years. McFerrin's "Voicistra" was honestly to my ear the last recording that pushed the bar forward while remaining musical. This isn't to say that I haven't heard good recordings and good performances lately, just not ones that were both innovative and truly musical. MOSS is just such a recording. It has reinvigorated my love of this genre and reminded me that when it comes to music anything is possible.

All the technical qualities are there. Blend, tuning, vowel placement, sense of ensemble but that is to be expected with musicians of this caliber. MOSS is so much more than that. It is a truly unique and incredibly beautiful work of art that I will never tire listening to.

"Old Man" is stunning and "I Carry Your Heart" a wonderfully sweet and treatise of such a beautiful and familiar prose as gentle as a snowflake that can be destroyed merely by the act of observing its beauty.

Anyone familiar with the many first-rate recordings put out in recent years by Luciana Souza, Kate McGarry, and Theo Bleckman will quickly snatch up this remarkable CD. Add in Peter Eldridge and Lauren Kinhan of New York Voices (who I was not previously familiar with) and you've got the most daring vocal group of our time. Stylistically, MOSS is anything but predictable. The songs range from the rootsy folk rock of Neil Young's "Old Man" and electronically-processed ambient tones of Bleckmann's "Orchard" to the Metheny-ish "These Things Take Time" and the classical/gospel "Object Devotion." You'll also find a couple of ballads and a bit of bossa nova (though suprisingly sung by Kinhan, not Souza).

Shadows and Light, the Joni Mitchell composition which both opens and closes this CD, is also the title of a live album that captured Mitchell's pathbreaking folk-jazz-rock period. Like Mitchell, MOSS's five diverse singers cannot be pigeon-holed: among them, their prior works traverse the range from contemporary classical and big band jazz, to Bjork, bossa nova, bebop, scat, ambient, avant garde, pop, rock, folk and more. But despite the fact that both McGarry and Souza are excellent interpreters of Mitchell, this is not another Joni tribute record. MOSS makes no attempt to project a single idea or create a single group sound; instead it showcases the polymorphous and wide ranging talents of the group. One thing is consistent, however: the high level of songcraft and exceptionally beautiful singing across the 13 tracks on this CD.

My favorite piece is McGarry's fugal arrangement of e.e. cummings' "i carry your heart with me (i carry it in)," which opens as a duet with her and Bleckmann, gradually building into lush harmonies and counterpoint involving all five voices; it's a sublime and spine-tingling work. Bleckmann's soulful rendering of Tom Waits' "Take it With Me" is also stunning. Others will surely find different favorites, as there is much to choose from. Finally, MOSS is not an a capella ensemble. The fine band, featuring Ben Monder on electric and Keith Ganz on acoustic guitars, provides a richly nuanced accompaniment to the front-line vocals. MOSS is a gem that belongs in every collection.

A vocal jazz group consisting of Kate McGarry, Theo Bleckmann, Luciana Souza and the New York Voices' Lauren Kinhan and Peter Eldridge is, by any other name, a "supergroup." After all, these are 5 of the finest young jazz vocalists in the world today.

But the formation of a group such as this begs a question: "Are we talking about a 'supergroup' such as 'Cream' - i.e., one whose whole equals or possibly exceeds the sum of its parts, or are we talking about a 'supergroup' such as 'Blind Faith' - i.e., one whose whole is less?"

After a few listens, here is my verdict: "Cream" All the Way, Baby.

I'm familiar with Mr. Bleckmann from "No Boat" and "Origami," and from those c.d.'s I expected this probably to be a wild, spacious, trippy production. Not exactly so, although there are no finger-snapping uptunes here.

Instead, it appears (as Luciana Souza explains in the liner notes) that these 5 got together with each bringing arrangements literally to the table, and the 5 molded and shaped them to be unique to the arranger's voice but harmonically common to the group.

Forming a professional vocal jazz ensemble is a difficult thing to do. The object - however you get there - is to make the ensemble something unique, without sounding "barbershopper-y" or "community choir-ish," but retaining the acute sense of pitch, blend and timing that the best of such groups contains. And "Moss" does that, and then some.

Virtually everything here is a highlight. The chant of Bleckmann's "Orchard" rings in my memory, days after I have last listened to the disc. Yet the trippiest thing here is the opening of Eldridge's "Busy Being Blue" over the expansiveness of Ben Monder's guitar chords. The loveliest cut to my ears is Kinhan's "Lavaliere," with the group's chanting echoes. The most challenging thing to me is the ee Cummings poem "I Carry your Heart With Me", brought to musical life by Kate McGarry. And to show their chops on more contemporary fare, Bleckmann sings the most beautifully I've ever heard him sing on Tom Waits' "Take It With Me," while the whole group breathes new life into Neil Young's "Old Man," co-arranged by Eldridge and McGarry. And Ms. Souza begins and ends the whole affair with two shimmering parts of Joni Mitchell's "Shadows and Light."

The quality that permeates the whole disc is intelligence. This is one of the most intelligent-sounding recordings I can remember. And it's also one with five extraordinary minds, sublimating their egos to create an extraordinary result. IMO, through the first 6 months of 2008, this is the best recording of the year. RC

What a rich and rewarding recording this is. Tremendous variety of material and enormously talented singers blending perfectly makes this a CD I come back to again and again. By far my favorite is Theo Bleckmann's version of Take it With Me---as beautiful a recording as I ever expect to hear. The man has the voice of an angel, and his treatment of this song brings out that unearthly beauty in spades. And the treatment of that song is typical of the whole CD: background voices subtle in the background, lending support without intruding on Bleckmann's singing, and the instrumentation entirely supportive and essential without calling attention to itself. If you like any of these singers, or songs, you really must buy this, and if you don't know them, you should buy it anyway, just to hear how beautiful music can be.

What's Moss? Take some DNA from Sheila Jordan, Joni Mitchell, Andy Bey and the Bey Sisters, and the less showy and more sophisticated side of The Manhattan Transfer. Moss has amazing vocal interplay; the supporting voices always make the leads sound even better than they otherwise would. Exceptional song choices, both the covers and the originals. This didn't leave my player for months, and I keep coming back to it.

My only question is: when is the next album from Moss? I'm not a music writer, but a singer and listener for whom the art of the vocal ensemble has been paramount. The adulation in the reviews above is not hyperbole or fawning -- there simply aren't words adequate to describe the effect of Moss's work here. I first found the track Object Devotion, on an internet radio station. When I bought the mp3 album on Amazon, i found a couple of more favorites, and now the whole album is an addiction for me, each song providing its own delights. The diversity of talents and genres represented here is stunning. I can't wait for the next album. What's more, I'm going to have to buy the "hard copy" album, so that I can learn everything possible about what went into the making of this album and who stands behind it.

OK, fine: so Mr. Simon of the Buffalo News doesn't care for the New York Voice's (NYV) double Grammy-winning style, which keeps them busy touring the world a full 19 years after their first recording. Maybe he's not a big vocal jazz guy. He's also fully entitled to prefer the more genre-bending mix of MOSS. But it's a tad confusing when he says he "hates" the NYV, and then raves about a group made up of 40% of its members (Peter Eldridge and Lauren Kinhan). In any case, why is it necessary to slam one group in order to praise another?

Dr. Judith Schlesinger, Senior writer/columnist, allaboutjazz.com