Customer Reviews

Penumbra

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

 

 

Bennie Maupin.

A major Miles collaborator, he never seemed able to parlay that gig into a career-building move.

Until now.

Take a way hip label like Cryptogramophone, link him up with the right bandmates, and voila! instant legend status ensues.

Sometimes, I think, these major jazz figures can't quite figure out how to make their mark, how to take that next step into jazz immortality. Bennie Maupin is a perfect example. One thinks of that neglected disc he did with Patrick Gleeson, Driving While Black--perfectly creditable, but pretty much relegated to obscurity. Whereas Penumbra is absolutely brilliant, especially since he's mostly employing that notoriously difficult axe, the bass clarinet, Maupin has, let's admit it, floundered in relative obscurity until Jeff Gautier of Cryptogramophone found a way to showcase his prodigal talent. Yet an artist as great as Joe Henderson found himself in a similar spot late in his career.

When I listen to Maupin's mastery, combined with the entirely sympatico backing of emerging monster bassist Darek Oles, saucy drummer Michael Stephens, and master percussionist Munyungo Jackson, I can only shake my head, wondering why no one before this has been able to figure out how to optimally present his musical genius.

And make no mistake: we're talking true musical greatness, right up there with late Joe Henderson, whose career was magically rescued and transformed by Richard Seidel. I suspect Jeff Gautier, founder and owner of Cryptogramophone, is playing the Seidel role here, and is responsible for resurrecting Maupin's career.

In any case, real magic goes down here. This group has been playing together and gigging for about a decade. And it shows. There's a both a comfort level and exploratory thrust that these musicians exhibit together. The music they produce demonstrates equal parts daring and empathetic communication. This is music you really need to hear. I pretty much guarantee you won't be disappointed.

Although the previous reviews do the recording justice, I wanted to add my strongest endorsement. This CD is one of the finest current jazz recordings I've had the good fortune to hear.

Maupin's playing runs the gamut, shifting from atmouspheric, to playful, to traditional bop to more aggressive avant-garde.
Oles's bass playing is a real highlight. He has a wonderful sound, funky and sharp, with a wonderfully warm tone. His sound fits so well with Maupin, it's like butter.
Stephens and Jackson do a great job with the percussion, mostly rolling and roilling along, gentle but not weak.

The songs themselves range in length, some ideas are just introduced, while others are more fully explored. As above, there is a wonderful range of sentiment within the various songs. It is a panoply of the jazz idiom.

This recording is highly engaging. Many thanks to the crew at Cryptogramophone for bringing it to us.

Even though I love reading liner notes and other reviews that technically dissect the music, and discuss various aspects of the album, I won't do that, I'm sure I'm no good at that.
I would say that I am a jazz lover, and by that I mean bebop, hard bop, post-bop, avante garde, etc. I love jazz, and I love this disc. It gets better and better with repeated listenings, probably because each time I understand it a little better. The bass clarinet can be so earthy, in a Mingusesque sort of way. Bravo, Bennie.

This CD is just going deep in the heart. Have been listening it weekly.. put it on again and again. It remains in the frontrow.. beautifull! Bennie were where you all that time?? please Please, go on, this is the way, you found it! Thanks!!

I have always like Bennie Maupin's bass clarinet as on Miles' [...] Brew etc, and this disk does not disappoint. In addition to some bass clarinet, Maupin blows some mean sax also. My favorite cut is "See the positive" which has a propulsive bass groove that reminds me of Miles' massive electric (though this disk is all acoustic instruments) Prelude on Agharta.

The bass is excellent on the disk and the double precussion fills out the mix well. Excellent sound on the disk, so often missing in these mp3 days !

Bennie Maupin's records with Miles and Herbie were all about making music that grooved but still stimulated the mind. And in a lot of ways, his awesome new disc Penumbra follows in the same tradition - tracks like "Neophilia 2006" and "See the Positive" are built around deeply funky bass ostinatos and in-the-pocket drumming and , but there's a lot more going on here than just jazz/funk fusion. Penumbra is a wildly diverse disc, with beautiful free pieces interspersed with post-bop, some burning straightahead numbers and modal pieces that remind me of mid-period Coltrane, and then Daryl Munyungo Jackson's hand percussion gives everything a subtle Afro-Cuban flavor. But the style shifts never seem jarring, thanks to the consistent intimacy of the instrumentation--with no harmony instruments and Maupin's bass clarinet and saxophone the only melody instrument, even the busiest numbers seem spare and personal, allowing enough space for each of Maupin's probing flights to spread its lamplit glow around the place. It's beyond me why it took so long for somebody to pick up Penumbra for release, but I can't think of a better home for it than Cryptogramophone.