| Jazz |
Here is an album that I didn’t select for Bayou Blue Radio, but it might interest some of you. Like all albums born out of the pandemic, it has its good and less exciting aspects. In the case of this album, although it is performed with talent, it feels more like a business card to return to the stage after the crisis rather than a genuine effort to offer an original album.
The arrangements are so classic that they don’t bring anything new to the songs; in fact, they make them just pleasant to listen to because they are interpreted with too much restraint. It was already risky to open with a piece from Weather Report (Manic), but honestly, I got bored after thirty seconds, and the rest of the album is of the same nature. Yes, they play, and they play very well, but such densely packed writing with overlapping instruments without any breathing room becomes quite stressful after a while.
The writing is too verbose, except for the track “Planetary Misalignment,” which is a bit less marked in its writing and therefore allows for an easier listen. The rest of this album is quite exhausting to listen to. Aligning the maximum number of notes in a measure is far from a stroke of genius. The art of great composers like Joe Zawinul, for example, lies in knowing how to manage the spaces of silence in their creations. That’s what gives depth to each track and allows the musicians to express themselves. Here, we are subjected to an overload of sound, which is simply draining. However, some of you will certainly appreciate it.
For the Bayou Blue Radio and Paris-Move reviews, we consider this album to be merely “good” because the musicians are excellent. As for the rest, it will be a matter of personal taste.
Thierry De Clemensat
Correspondent in USA
Bayou Blue News – Bayou Blue Radio – Paris-Move
PARIS-MOVE, July 1st 2023
::::::::::::::::::::::::::