There have been a lot of excellent albums dished up for review this year and already the contenders for Album of the Year are amassing.
Auteur is one guaranteed to be in the shake-up. It's the kind of music I had in mind when I first started blogging all those years ago - bop, hard bop, post bop and beyond (albeit not too far beyond).
In his notes, Weiss states that, just like in politics, jazz has no middle anymore. adding that, unlike in politics, in music, the middle is not the safest place to occupy, it may in fact be the riskiest. Yet the risk is worth the reward. Where political compromise can cause a dilution of policy, in art, eclecticism can lead to subtlety.
Well that's all a bit heavy for me although I can see where he's coming from and, if this album is representative of those observations then I'm with him all the way!
Weiss is well remembered from a couple of visits to the Gateshead International Jazz Festival with The Cookers in 2015 and 2016 and, if anything, his trumpet playing here is even more fiery than it was then.
Nicole Glover appeared earlier this month on Ben Wolfe's The Understated which also included a couple of tracks by the late Russell Malone. On that recording she was cucumber cool. Here, I suspect, her true self bursts free. It's gutsier than previous, maybe because of the gauntlets being thrown down by Weiss and Walden. Whatever, Glover meets the challenges and lays down a few of her own.
Walden was a relatively unfamiliar name to me although he has turned up on a couple of albums reviewed by others in the past. In the future, unfamiliar will be an adjective no longer used by me when making reference to Myron! Quite an amazing player stretching both the boundaries of the music and his instrument.
Bryant is the kind of pianist I'm sure everyone wants in their band. A chordal chemist providing the harmonic elixor to inspire the soloist before grabbing his own spot centre stage. At times a hint of Monk or Bud or maybe Ahmad but always himself.
Eric Wheeler handles the session ably even though comparisions must have been made with Weiss' former bass player the late Dwayne Burno who passed in 2013 at the age of 43. That's as maybe, but Wheeler does the business here to perfection.
On drums, Strickland has an intuitive sense of what is needed, cutting his cloth to suit the individuals as well as the band's overall direction. Not surprising that he comes into his own on the final track - a tribute to Art Blakey.
Weiss composed five of the seven compositions, the other two were: Rebop by Freddie Hubbard and Slide Hampton's Blues For Bu.
A contender, maybe numero uno. The official release date is Sept. 20... Lance
Too Little, Too Late; Resilience (For George)*; The Other Side of the Mountain; Rebop; The Mirror; With Gratitude (For Wayne)**; One For Bu ***
* For George Cables. ** For Wayne Shorter. *** For Art Blakey
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