Album review: Jeff Coffin - Look For Water

Jeff Coffin (tenor/sop sax); Johnny Vidacovich (drums/toy piano); Tony Dagradi (tenor sax); James Singleton (bass); Helen Gillet (cello tk 9)

After 40 seconds of unexplained toy piano - I mean I ask you?! - the toy piano is ditched and we thankfully move onto some, at times, quite arresting blowing by the two horns. The chordless ensemble format, they tell me, affords Coffin the freedom of exploration between multiple sonorities at any given moment - which the saxophonist utilises to the fullest, weaving masterfully-crafted stories with his horn. I must confess I couldn't have phrased it better myself  - if I'd known what it meant!

Nevertheless, if, as the saying goes, ignorance is bliss, I'll remain in blissful ignorance and enjoy the tenor solos by Dagradi and Coffin's mainly soprano solos.

Sweet Magnolias has some gutsy tenor playing whilst Half A Baton has both tenors kicking seven shades out of each other. It makes a JATP joust seem like a string quartet playing at a garden party on the vicarage lawn.

Although there are moments - when Vidacovich isn't playing with toy pianos, his drumming is impressive - it is left to the final track where it all erupts.

Luminosity lasts for 11.36 minutes and has some fine soprano, effective bass and no toy pianos although Helen Gillet sneaks in on cello adding a dimension to the possibilities of the instrument that Pablo Casals in his worst nightmares could never have dreamed of. The horns take it out on a post bop riff with a bit of wild free for all at the end.

In this digital age, I'm told you can go on various platforms and buy individual tracks just like we did back in those good all days of shellac which you played at 78 rpm, if you hadn't dropped them on the way home.

Luminosity is the one to check out. The others you may wish that you had been able to drop them on the way home. Lance

BANDCAMP