This
is the album that JBL was promoting when I saw his
gig at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival this year and it comes roaring
out of the speakers with nearly the same energy as seeing him and his two
confederates live.
Bouncing
drums, subterranean bass set the background for JBL’s frantic foregrounding of
intense, spiralling, jabbing sax as he wrings his way through short phrases,
questing and tearing at the fabric that the rhythm section have raised as if it
were a curtain between band and listener. And that was Apple Cores #1.
Prince Eugene is mellower in its own way with JBL wailing sharply over a lilting Caribbean groove; though the pace is slower the focused intensity remains. Five Spots to Caravan (inspired by Ornette Coleman), is altogether more apocalyptic with a heavyweight groove of punching bass and rattling drums providing the springboard for more stratospheric soaring from Lewis. From the other end of the spectrum, Of Mind and Feeling is the perfect title for some pastoral contemplation with sax that is almost Stan Getzian in its bluesy fluidity. Seconds later Apple Cores #2 barges you out of any residual wistfulness with another round of heavy gravitational drum hitting and more sonic sax wrestling; funky with it tho’. Remember Brooklyn & Moki is as solid grooving piece of urban blues built on a lovely rolling bass line in the background underneath spare, but meaty, drums and a sweeping sax line, full of warmth and hope and, thankful remembrance of Brooklyn and Moki.
Broken Shadows (an
Ornette Coleman piece) opens gently but such delicacy is quickly abandoned in
favour of more heavyweight hitting. Another of Josh Werner’s bass grooves leads
us into D.C. Got Pocket with Taylor
rattling around the ever so insistent groove. Lewis’ sax floats and punches,
like Ali, over the top. There is so much space in these recordings you can
almost visualise them spread along the length of a great hall with the sound
arriving at the same time at different levels of intensity. As with Apple Cores #1 and #2, Apple Cores #3 is more Coltrane-esque wrestling with more
furious blowing and Taylor dropping bombs in the middle distance. This is just
a prelude to the explosive opening to Don’t
Forget Jayne; four square drumming rolls heavily along behind a squall of
sax with Monteiro’s guitar providing pastoral washes that shouldn’t work, but
do, filling in some of the gaps and creating a distant horizon, like a seascape
that Lewis flies over. That guitar is more forceful and, indeed, foregrounded,
on closer Exactly, Our Music. Various
effects bring it into focus as a foil to Lewis more extravagant blowing,
delicate single note shards of Metheny-esque fluidity give way to short,
questioning phrases from Lewis that slowly fade away with the bass and drums
nodding along in the background.
There’s
more variety to this album than I expected but I do enjoy Lewis’ big voiced
tenor and I don’t think I’ve been as excited about an American tenor player
since Mark Turner a few years back. I think the Messthetics album from last
year with Lewis’ on board is probably the best work of his that I have heard
and I have gone back to that quite a lot lately. All the same, Apple Cores is currently sitting comfortably
in my Top Ten of the year so far. Dave
Sayer
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