Customer Reviews

Sonic Trance

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Dave Douglas, Guillermo Brown, Kurt Rosenwinkel, The Bad Plus, Pharoah Sanders/Graham Haynes, Roy Hargrove, John Scofield, Garage a Trois, Brad Meldhau, Christian McBride--these are just a few of the artists trying to move the music beyond its post-bop/free-bop doldrums. Their strategy may not be new--the incorporation of seemingly alien elements (hip-hop, trance, jam-band, electronica) into a firmly established esthetic--but the sounds they're coming up with sure are.

With his new release, Sonic Trance, Nicholas Payton has gone as far as anyone in the direction of a genuinely new approach. Interestingly, Payton appears to be in it for the long haul: This disc is a kind of documentation of what's happening with him and his working band (Payton, trumpet, flugelhorn, effects; Tim Warfield, tenor and soprano sax; Kevin Hays, keyboards; Vicente Archer, bass; Adonis Rose, drums; Daniel Sadownick, percussion; Karriem Riggins, sampler). An interesting mix of players, to be sure. For example, Karriem Riggins, himself a young drummer of note, in this band is relegated to sampled sounds; Kevin Hays, who started out as just another young-lion post-bop pianist, is heard almost exclusively on electric keyboards; Daniel Sadownick, a percussionist of note, provides a much richer percussive underpinning than I've ever heard from him before.

What does it sound like? A heady stew of tradition and wild experimentation. Take "Blu Hays," the closest thing to a straight jazz number. It cooks along with a traditional acoustic walking bass, but Hays tweaks his piano with weird effects, Sadownick lays down a killer percussion base, and Payton solos with wild abandon. Other numbers, such as "Stinkie Twinkie (remix)," venture much farther into musical hinterlands, with equally startling effect. In a single tune, you're likely to hear funky, fuzzed-out keyboards, whistles, bird calls, unidentifiable percussion effects, sax drones, blats, prepared acoustic piano, and wah-wah trumpet. But somehow, it all becomes integrated into a marvelously rich soundscape that never palls, never seems contrived, no matter how alien and even mannered some of it sounds. My favorite cut is "Two Mariachis on the Wall" (or it could be "Two Mexicans on the Wall": the first appears on my media player screen as the title; the second as the title on the disc sleeve--maybe it has two titles, I don't know). There's some real bizarreness happening here: It starts out with a drunken calliope-like quote from "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" then morphs into some faux "Sketches of Spain" lunacy, with everyone going ten directions at once, then ends with a very atmospheric coda with Kevin Hays playing a mesmerizing piano line and Vicente Archer sounding like three bassists at once punctuated by occasional Sadownick's slap-happy maracas. All in all, there's a suite-like thing going on as songs tend to fade into one another.

Maybe not the Last Word in the Nu Jazz, but certainly a bold statement from a band to contend with.

Nick Payton is without a doubt one of the finest young trumpeters in jazz today. Though he has often been pigeon-holed as a traditional or hard-bop player, with this album he breaks the mold in a big way. If the blues had a baby named Rock and Roll, what do you call the baby of Rock, Jazz, Funk, Electronica, Reggae, and Mariachi? Nick calls it Sonic Trance.

This album is mind bending. The dense layers of sound beg for focused listening, while the deep grooves beg for you to shake your ass. Why only 4 stars then? Because I just saw the group live. The way the band performs, the music seems to become programmatic, taking me on an emotional journey like nothing I've experienced before. It tops the CD, and makes me wish the band had toured before they recorded. I guess Nick might just have to issue a live album!

Let yourself enter a Sonic Trance. It's worth it.

I had the opportunity to sit down and listen to this album recently and was simply blown away! If your idea of "jazz" is more progressive than your average Foney James fan, then do yourself a favor and pick up this album! I have to admit that it takes a lot of talent to infuse the likes of Weather Report, the Beatles, A Tribe Called Quest, and Edgard Varese into one musical statement.

Mr. Payton, much love! Thanks for the new joint; 'tis mighty tasty!

Other similarly progressive albums that should be required listening for you and your loved ones:

Kurt Rosenwinkel - Heartcore
Herbie Hancock - Future 2 Future (check out the DVD...SOLID)
Dave Douglas - Freak In
Vernon Reid (formerly of Living Color) - Mistaken Identity
A Tribe Called Quest - Low End Theory
Digable Planets - Blowout Comb

This is the best CD I have purchased in years and definitely Nicholas Payton at his best! The whole CD is red hot though favorite moments include shabba, fela and velvet handcuffs (?)!!!! Do not hesitate to buy this one. 70 minutes of music, lotta bang for your buck!

I picked up this disc at a local used CD shop. I can imagine the person who sold it to them couldn't make it thru one listen, before deciding it wasn't worth the shelf space to store in his house. He was probably expecting a typical Payton outing--whatever that is. I came to this disc without knowing anything about the artist, but with an appreciation for fusion, trance, techno, and acid jazz. This disc is a meld of all that, which creates a glorious noise that is well executed and strangely addicting. No, it doesn't make great background music. Neither will you be tapping your toes much or bopping your head. If those are all the things you can do to music, you probably want to skip this effort.

But if you don't mind being challenged in a way that is also entertaining--evoking maybe film music one moment, some weird mid-20th-century "who cares if you listen" Milton Babbitt piece elsewhere, some 1970's free jazz excursion where everyone sounds like they were playing in a different room on yet another track, and still elsewhere some 1980's Herbie Hanckock Rockit-era hip-hop-fusion updated to today--then this is a great trip. It's not "easy listening" (in any sense of that term). Some of the tracks even I find annoying and have to skip; in particular Seance, with its droning synths and off-kilter percussion, is just too stomach-churning for me. (But then how many discs do any of us love in their entirety and play straight through?)

I gather from the other reviews that Payton is more of a traditional neo-bop performer rehashing the same jazz we've known and loved for 40+ years. I'm as big a hard-bop/post-bop fan as anyone and if that's what he normally produces, I'll be checking him out more. But I'm glad I don't suffer from the disease most jazz fans seem to, where they have very narrow opinions of what counts as "real jazz." They forget that once upon a time this was the cutting-edge, somewhat disreputable form of popular music; today they call it "America's Classical Music" and pat themselves on the back for being so sophisticated and prove how discerning they are by having a snot-filled conniption if something released on a jazz label doesn't sound like it was recorded in 1967. This album makes me believe there's still some attempt at innovation in jazz, even if it provokes the wrath of the purists.

In fact, their loss is my gain--without at least one disgusted listener, I'd have had to pay a lot more for my copy of this very captivating and entertaining disc.

Howdy,

I took my wife to hear NP play at the Max in Detroit on 5/21. The band was fabulous...him, sax, drums, percussion, piano, stand up bass. The command and ease that the players brought to the material showed me not only their skills but their passions. I love music of all kinds that plays on the cornerstones of various styles, and the material off Sonic Trance that NP played was playful, emotional, full of funk. Enjoy

It was in 1998 when I obtained a live recording of Nicholas Payton's quintet that I became an avid jazz fan. That recording alone influenced me to buy well over 1,000 other jazz albulms, keeping in mind most of wich are mainstream-jazz, as was the music produced from his quintet. When I saw this albulm in the music store in october, naturally I bought it (being Nicholas Payton is my favorite musician). I was definately surprised at first, but it did not take long for me to become completely enfatuated with the albulm. In fact, I'm still enfatuated with it, almost 4 months later. In an interveiw, Mr. Payton was asked to describe the recording with one word, and his response was "Life." I myself couldn't find a better word to describe it. This is possibly one of the most diverse alublms I have every purchased; every song has a completely different mood and uses influences from what seems to be every musical genre there is. I particularly find "tantric" (both versions) and "cannabis leaf rag to stand out.

This is my Third Nicholas Payton CD so I don't have much history to go on but I do intend to check out his earlier stuff. Listen to the sound clips... It's not smooth jazz, thank goodness... It's hip, it's nu, it keeps finding it's way back into my CD player for repeat listening. Hopefully Payton sticks to this nu style because it is nothing short of brilliant!

Don't have the cd yet, but I'm going to pick it uo at the local store soon. I attended his concert last night at sculler's jazz club and it was one of the best shows I've seen. I've seen him twice, the Sonic Trance concert was definitely the best out fo the two. What I have heard on the cd is absolutely crazy. Ridonculous.

Sonic Trance does not sound like Bitches Brew, but hearing this Nicholas Paton album, you instantly think of Miles' masterpiece from 1970.

How could this be: Miles did not only make an album, he crated a framework, using tonal centers and free floating electronic improvisation. Hear Brew now and the concept seems completely logical, but it took Davis 25 years to invent it.

Sonic Trance is a modern album and does not invent anything, but Miles' wheel is redecorated with modern electronics, hard edge ska, and digital editing Miles and Teo Marceo would have given seventeen Fender Rhodes to have available in 1970--those painstaking hours slicing magnetic tape with razor blades, wow. You can do it better with a mouseclick in an eyeblink.

Payton's album sounds fantastic, and is ultra-aware of its stance as homage and reexamination . This music was not taken seriously enough by many in the 1970s; we all know now Davis' On the Corner invented an entire sub-genre but it took thirty years for the world to figure out what Davis knew.

Payton sure has, and has done a real service bringing Miles' ideas into the 2000s world, where Miles probably wanted to be, he just needed the critics, the fans, and the technology to catch up /