Customer Reviews

The Sonic Temple

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This double CD (recorded live with no editing during the Atlantic Jazz Festival, at the Sonic Temple Studio Halifax Canada, on 7/17 & 18, 2006), has grown on me with repeated listening. V16 plays the same set both nights which helps reveal the breadth of their creative approach, and the subtle differences a new day and crowd make. What I like about this group is their ability to make music without rush, without fear or restrain, but also with delightful and tasteful playfulness and close communication. These are composed and rehearsed songs, but it feels like we're hearing them being created fresh and new for the first time. This kind of free-form, meandering and adventurous approach to composition and performing isn't for everyone, but it has definitely grown on me. It sometimes reminds me of a Grateful Dead space-jam but more creative, spacious and less urgent and sinister (ie joyously playful)...

V16 is based around veteran bandleader and drummer Jerry Granelli, with his son J Anthony on electric bass and Christian Kogel and David Tronzo on electric guitars. The maturity and wisdom of Granelli Sr. shows in how he sets the tone yet keeps a low profile, letting the younger guys compose all the tunes and lead the jams (only James Brown's "It's a Man's World" is a cover - and a beautiful job they do of it too!). As he says in the liner notes, "This band is like a chemical reaction, whenever we get together or whatever music we approach just seems to turn into this wonderful sonic adventure always on the edge, and always in this wonderful world of nowness."

By the way, the sonic quality of this recording is excellent, all the instruments are crisp and distinct, and the sound just jumps right out of the speakers.