Customer Reviews

Quiet As It's Kept

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

 

 

A relaxed, warm, mellow session of beautiful new compositions from one of the most important and innovative composer of contemporary jazz scene. Bobby Watson work on the sound of his horn and on the melody. It's essentially a ballads album oriented that remind Coltrane's Ballads. It's different but similar for the poetry and the mastery of the music. A classic album for the new millenium. The music is fresh, full of feeling and innovative.

It's great to hear Bobby Watson back on Red Records, the label of his greatest successes (especially Love Remains). Sadly, Quiet As It's Kept is already hard to find. I thought he'd finally put it all together after the marginal success of his group Horizon on a major label (RCA?--I don't have those CD's in front of me) and the universally panned fusion effort on the ill-fated Kokopelli label, but he still seems to be Mr. Hard Luck.

It's difficult to know why this man isn't a jazz superstar. He's paid his dues, having come up with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers; he has one of the most beautiful tones on alto sax of anyone in the history of jazz, and he's no slouch on suprano sax either; he's an excellent composer, with some of his tunes in the standard category, and he shares a penchant for melonchollic composition with Tom Harrell, the great jazz trumpeter. One possibility is that he's too old to be a young lion and too young to be an old master.

Quiet As It's Kept is a wonderful record. Choosing to forego the overheated virtuoso approach that characterizes much of jazz these days, Watson instead concentrates on slow-to-mid-tempo ballads. Perhaps that gives the record an aural monochromaticism that displeases some ears--not mine, however. The playing by all is top drawer, especially Ralph Peterson, whom one does not expect to hear in such surroundings. Simply some of the very best jazz currently available. Trust me, you won't be disappointed.

If there were any justice in the world, fame and celebrity would be based solely on a the quality of person's talent and the excellence of his accomplishments. If that were the case, Bobby Watson would be as big a star as . . . well, as big a star as anyone in the music "industry" (there's a gruesome phrase for you.) Unfortunately, stardom and its concomitant rewards (e.g., money) are seldom based upon talent and accomplishment. This deplorable state of affairs must drive the Bobby Watsons of the world nuts. I know if I had Bobby Watson's talent, and had worked as hard as he has to nurture and cultivate that talent and had achieved what he has achieved, and I saw dozens of clowns such as . . . (well, I won't mention any names) raking in the cake while I had a hard time selling out tiny clubs, I know I'd be deranged with rage. But, then, I'm more than a little upset that I don't have Bobby Watson's talent to begin with. . . .

In any event, this disc of soft ballads appears to be BW's attempt to grab a little air play on "smooth jazz" radio stations, gain wider exposure among the "lights out" crowd, and, one hopes, sell more records. And why not? If producing several great recordings, including an absolute classic in "Love Remains," failed to lift BW out of relative obscurity, he may as well try another approach. One certainly can find no fault with the music on this recording; the tunes are lovely, the arrangements are tight, and BW's playing is, as always, precise, soulful, and passionate. As "mood music" it can hardly be bettered. And that's probably the problem. It simply blows away the bland, bloodless noodling of the typical "smooth jazz artist," which means it's much too good to get significant air play on "The Quiet Storm." Oh well, it was a nice try. Now I guess Mr. Watson will just have to go back to making disc after disc of eye-popping, hair-raising, righteous jazz (no quotation marks needed.) And, who knows? Perhaps someday there will be justice in the world.