Trading With the Enemy

Tuatara | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 23, 1998)
• Original Release Date: June 23, 1998
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B000007QCY
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #183,030 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars excellent, April 24, 2010

By 

Bill Your 'Free Form FM Handi Cyber Print DJ ... (Mahwah, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Trading With the Enemy (Audio CD)

I don't think in the 1950s or 1960s there was really such a thing as hipster jazz. Lenny Bruce and the beat poets and jazz musicians cross bred in Greenwich Village, but it was really long after the fact that this became imagery--a filterless cigarette, a fedora, an upright bass neck surrounded by smoke.

Now, we have the mythology, and a whole genre of music to be made with a rich if long ago lineage behind it. Take Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch, maybe some Modern Jazz Quartet, some 1960s euro soundtrack music, and ask yourself, if we were in 1962 New York, what would we sound like?

That answer is provided with conviction by Tuatura. This album has all the blues, aggressive chord structures, vibraphones and baritone saxes needed to create those long ago shadowed fedoras of the mind, walking in 4am Manhattan, on the street street but underground. There are modern production traces here, some marimba and other exotica that probably would not have been placed in the 50 year old article. But I hear a lot of Dolphy, Lalo Schfrin, Quincy Jones, which far outweighs any 1990s adulterations.

Does it work: absolutely. This music is well played, and much more importantly, understood deeply enough by Tuatara that it never becomes parody. If you were a 12-year-old just discovering jazz and had no idea of any history before the I-pod, the five shot espresso blues and snarling sax is more than hooky enough to snag any boy or girl genius with wings beyond Jessica Simpson.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent, August 1, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Trading With the Enemy (Audio CD)

An excellent piece of jazz-cum-rock-cum-latin and whatever have you, this record is both endlessly surprising and still wonderfully coherent. Masterly crafted by a bunch of very talented musicians - you'll only notice they're much more talented than you thought: hear Pearl Jam's Mike Stone playing the piano, Peter Buck on dulcimer, Scott McCaughey on Japanese traditional koto... Made by such an eclectic group of people, this record sounds nevertheless as if made in a jazzman's heaven. Go get it!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Groovin' music with a "Mission Impossible" flair, July 16, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Trading With the Enemy (Audio CD)

Initially heard a couple of tunes on PRI's "World Cafe". The first one titled "The Streets of New Delhi" reminded me of the theme for Mission Impossible. By the second song, "Fela the Conqueror", I was hooked. So I ended up taking a detour and purchasing the CD before getting home. This CD just grooves, blending music of all forms, from traditional jazz to melodic latin vibes to percussion laden african jams into a sometimes funky, sometimes soothing, always intriguing musical delight. It's worth checking out. You'd never imagine Peter Buck of R.E.M. fame being a part of this band.