4.0 out of 5 stars
Maybe too much of a good thing or me in a churlish mood?, February 12, 2009
This review is from: On This Day (Audio CD)
This is a very good CD albeit a bit of an experiment, one that works although I feel it is at its best in smaller dosages.
Let me explain. Dave Ballou wanted to create something totally extemporaneous. Webster's online dictionary defines that as "1 a (1): composed, performed, or uttered on the spur of the moment : impromptu <an extemporaneous comment> (2): carefully prepared but delivered without notes or text". This definition is perfect for Ballou's project. He brought to the studio friends and associates to perform without any predefined structures. The music was to be created completely on this day, at this moment and with these friends.
Besides his own fine self on trumpet, Ballou uses Billy Drewes on soprano and alto sax, Tony Malaby on tenor, Mike Formanek on bass and Tom Rainey on drums. A New York downtown scene supergroup.
So why my review title? In some ways, I think a CD like this is perfect for this day and age when it is so easy to create mix CDs or MP3 programs or whatever medium you prefer. This is very high quality music throughout the CD but it is not something that I listen to the whole way through. I like to listen to it on spiral function with other CDs as well.
It is just a little demanding. It is a function of my musical psychology and maybe that of others that I try to intuitively impose structure or resolution on music. I suspect that musicians do the same thing. Listen to the beginning of Robin and Treebeard. Formanek just starts off and within seconds Ballou is in complicated improv flight. His improve shifts all over the place, he is particularly good at shifting tempo. He has a nice slippery quality- in a single note the whole feeling of his time changes. At the two minute mark Malaby appears and everything shifts and settles in for a while and then takes off in another direction. To make sense of it you have to actively listen to it and then it shifts again. Great stuff in concert or in small dosages but to listen to the whole CD while trying to do other stuff...I am listening to it now as I write this and I find myself stopping and focusing on the playing.
And it is good playing. I meant what I said about this being a downtown supergroup. These guys are all outstanding and experienced sideman and leaders in their own right. I think of Formanek, Malaby and Rainey as all being names that guarantee the quality of any project they are playing on.
So there you have it. Very advanced creative improv music that requires an attentive listener. If you are familiar with the players and like their music, this CD is a very good bet for you. And my point about it being best in small dosages may be more of a reflection on my incapacities than the music. If you try it out, let me know what you think.
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