Perceptual

Brian Blade | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 11, 2000)
• Original Release Date: April 11, 2000
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Blue Note Records
• ASIN: B00004RCAG
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #107,734 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

As a rule, drummers don't make good bandleaders, because nobody wants to hear drum solos all the time. But what makes Louisiana-born Brian Blade special is that he is more of a colorist than a showman, a drummer who, like Billy Higgins, prefers to set moods that go with the grooves. Perceptual is his second outing with the Fellowship ensemble and is a satisfying follow-up to the band's Blue Note debut. With Myron Walden and Melvin Butler on saxophones and bass clarinet, Chris Thomas on bass, Daniel Lanois, Dave Easley, and Kurt Rosenwinkel on steel and electric guitars, and Jon Cowherd on keyboards, Blade and company create jazz textures that evoke America's wide-open spaces. Think of Pat Metheny's Bright Size Life and American Garage and you'll get the band's futuristic folk vibe on the title cut and the sly, shifting tempos of "Crooked Creek" and the three-part suite, "Variations of A Bloodline"--a poignant, musical comment on ethnic strife. Blade's melodic gifts got him work with Joshua Redman, Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, and Joni Mitchell, who lends her wispy vocals to "Steadfast"--an elegiac meditation on the late-1990s rash of U.S. school shootings--and the CD's coda, "Trembling." If you ever plan to travel across the U.S., this recording will make an excellent soundtrack. --Eugene Holley Jr.

From Jazziz

Articles about Brian Blade typically cite the wide range of musical styles he's mastered while playing with such artists as Joshua Redman, Pat Metheny, Seal, Emmylou Harris, Bob Dylan, and Joni Mitchell. But as he demonstrates on this, his second project as leader, his versatility is much more than any vocabulary of stylized, genre-specific licks that can be mixed and matched. Rather, Blade possesses a liquid approach that enables him to meet each piece of music on its own terms, saturating it with rhythmic propulsion and percussive color.

The members of Fellowship - guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkle, pedal steel player Dave Easley, saxophonists Melvin Butler and Myron Walden, keyboardist Jon Cowherd, and bassist Christopher Thomas - prove more through relaxed, confident musicianship than from in-your-face aggression. Blade is a supportive accompanist who also serves as protagonist. He especially seems to enjoy mixing it up with Rosenwinkle, which results in some of the album's most spirited moments.

Blade and Cowherd contribute the bulk of the compositions. While individuals are given opportunities for personal statements (except Blade, who doesn't take any drum solos), the arrangements utilize the group as a whole to serve the compositions, rather than being mere vehicles for blowing. Vocalists Daniel Lanois and Joni Mitchell appear on a couple of tracks, but the album's strength is the passion and unity of purpose displayed by Blade and Fellowship.

--- Rick Mattingly Copyright © 2000, Milor Entertainment, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a true fellowship, August 16, 2002

By 

Todd Ebert (Long Beach California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Perceptual (Audio CD)

When listening to this recording I can't help but sense the
love and empathy that these musicians have for one another. I especially enjoy the interesting blend of horns and electric guitars, and the full spectrum of emotions found in the music that is produced by them. Moreover, I believe this proves beyond doubt that Brian Blade is one of the best drummers to come around since may be Tony Williams. He certainly knows how to inject a sense of what I would call "sound expansion and musical-idea exploration" via his polyrhythmic approach to drumming. And for this reason it doesn't surprise me that he's now touring with Wayne Shorter (check out Blade on Shorter's "Footprints Live" and better yet don't miss them on their world tour!) who is amoung the masters at creating winding, detailed musical stories based on basic instrumental sound patterns.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Strangely (for jazz in 2000) Original and HONEST, June 5, 2000

By 

Ryan Blum (Santa Barbara, Ca) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Perceptual (Audio CD)

After my primary title of Student, I consider myself to be a lot of things, most accurately "Weird Jazz Musician." I've spent my life--or at least, the 6 years that have passed between 7th grade and now--listening to John Zorn, Ornette Coleman, Bill Frisell, Dewey Redman, etc., as well as more mainstream weirdos such as mid-to-late Miles, Mingus, Dave Holland, and Anthony Braxton.

I've heard a lot of CD's in my (paltry) 18 (almost 19) years, and up until now, I thought that maybe _A Love Supreme_ or _The Black Saint and Sinner Lady_ was my absolute favorite album.

But something about Fellowship's 2 albums--the self titled and this one, _Perceptual_--strikes a string deep within my soul. It hits me as pure honesty, pure unabashed beauty.

My crazy jazz friends and I saw this group last Tuesday at Catalina's in Hollywood, and we were struck deeply. Brian Blade is an amazing musician, a deeply intelligent, spiritual and highly physical drummer whose compositions are just PERFECT. He seems, in the words of my drummer friend, completely HONEST.

It is no hyperbole when I say these are the most amazing jazz albums (and with Paul Simon's _Rhythm of the Saints_ and Peter Gabriel's _Us_, thebest, period) I've ever heard.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perceptions on Perceptual, July 5, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Perceptual (Audio CD)

I saw Brian Blade play a couple of weeks ago with the Wayne Shorter Quartet (which included, besides Shorter and Blade, John Patitucci on bass and Danilo Perez on piano). It was an extraordinary ensemble, and they played with a taut ferocity, one that deconstructed and reconstructed Shorter's classic compositions in fresh new ways (much as Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, and Ron Carter had once deconstructed and reconstructed Miles Davis' old songbook in their performances at Plugged Nickel).

Brian Blade's "Perceptual" may be one of finest jazz CDs put out in 2000. It showcases Blade's percussive brilliance. No--"showcase" is not quite the word, for it makes it sound as if he is out front. Rather, his percussion work undergirds the music, swims beneath it, knits it together without drawing undue attention to itself. As other reviewers have noted, Blades is a colorist who uses the drumset not to thunder out rhythms, but to paint subtle textures whose webs intertwine with the intricate ebb and flow of the other voices, especially Melvin Butler's sax and Kurt Rosenwinkel's guitar. But this is more than dazzling technique. A risk among certain contemporary jazz musicians is to be all technique and not have sometime to say. Blade and his colleagues have much to say: about memories, about love and anguish and tenderness. The melodies are beautiful, haunting, melancholy at times, yet without sentimentality. But they eschew the drift into "smooth jazz" fluff and maintain a crisp edge to the textures they weave. While the title song is excellent, most representative of the range and intensity of the CD is the medley "Variations of a Bloodline." This is a conjuring of beauty not to be missed.