Displaying news from 1 June 2005 to 1 July 2005.
the reviews of the respect sextet's newest record, Respect In You are slowly starting to trickle in. just a week ago, we noticed a really nice review in paris transatlantic magazine (as noted in the previous blog entry). for those of you who had trouble finding it through the link below, here it is:
Two years ago, the Abdullah Ibrahim trio's lackluster performance at the Montreal Jazz Festival put me in a very foul mood, and the evening was only saved by a chance encounter with an unheralded group at a nearby club playing energized versions of Ornette Coleman songs. Recently, while wondering a) if Dave Holland was ever going to produce anything as remotely inspired as Conference of the Birds and b) whether the world really needs a twelve-disc Vandermark 5 live set, this strangely-titled album arrived and I was similarly lifted out of my trough of despond. Instead of Ornette, Misha Mengelberg is the stylistic touchstone for The Respect Sextet; aside from a reading of his delightfully-named “Hypochristmutreefuzz” (which meanders in an engagingly madcap manner before finally getting around to the theme just before the end), they have a habit of throwing in snippets of other Misha songs throughout the rest of the album, as if New Dutch Swing had been grafted and transplanted into foreign soil in an unlikely location– a club in Rochester, New York. But these guys are far more than an ICP cover band: their influences are wide-ranging. The disc starts off with Fred Anderson’s “3 on 2”, and if Josh Rutner doesn’t emulate Fred’s tenor riffs, he has a similarly brawny tone. The group pounds a series of grooves into submission Anderson-style, with trumpeter Eli Asher and trombonist James Hirschfeld getting in their licks while pianist/accordionist Red Wierenga (somewhat buried in the mix) and drummer Ted Poor team up with guest bassist Matt Clohesy to propel the horns through the compositional twists and turns. “Postal (a.k.a. PB&J)” starts as an upbeat Mingus-like blues with fluid tenor sax over a cooking rhythm section that downshifts to a trombone-heavy New Orleans funeral march. As the dirge comes to a halt, Rutner deftly interjects a couple of Mengelberg quotes (a brief “Die Berge Schuetzen Die Heimat” followed by “Rollo II”, for you Mishaphiles), Clohesy lays down a throbbing pulse under Poor’s crisp cymbal work and the band returns to the initial theme. Please don’t take my word for how good this is: go to www.respectsextet.com and sample their generous mp3 offerings, sign the guest book and insist they get their earlier CDRs back in print.—Stephen Griffith
earlier this week, we were treated to a very nice review on the website blog of mr. nate dorward. the text of that review reads:
The Respect Sextet, Respect in You, Roister.
This is easily the most exciting jazz disc I’ve heard this year. The joky bandname is perhaps offputting, but just sample the whirling 15-minute version of Fred Anderson’s “3 on 2" at the start & you’ll see why these guys (Josh Rutner, Eli Asher, James Hirschfield, Red Wierenga, Matt Clohesy, Ted Poor) are special: the piece emerges out of fuzzy radio haze and an a cappella tenor solo, & then it digs in hard, but with a kind of narrative approach, the band members constantly rethinking their relation with either other, burying melancholy song within layers of intensity, letting the groove evolve & smooth out & tauten (Ted Poor is a marvel at the drumkit). There’s one other cover – Misha Mengelberg’s “Hypchrismutreefuzz” – and some excellent originals, including the finest multifaceted essay on the blues I’ve heard since Paul Smoker’s 15-minute “St Louis Blues” on Genuine Fables. First disc of the year I’m giving a ***** to.
nate dorward will also be publishing a longer review for cadence magazine very soon!
in other news, jen and i will be moving to a place in forte green, brooklyn next month. it's a lovely place that was once inhabited by mrs. and a.b.d. seth (jude stewart) brodsky. both, on separate grants, will be making berlin their home for the next year. good luck you two!
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