|
Rough Jazz (phd music 1006) from 1997 is an altogether different date. Featuring John Gross playing tenor sax, Alan Jones on drums, Dan Schulte playing bass, and leader, pianist Gordon Lee; this is a aptly named CD.
Lee's approach to the entire album is intelligent. The process of music making has a logical and thoughtful development. Now I want to be clear here. I'm not calling this intellectual jazz (a put-down in some circles). Lee's growth as an artist is quite obvious from the earlier date. A middle eastern tone is the subtle underpinning of Loss is Freedom and stated more boldly in Istanbul. I believe the best way to expand the vocabulary of jazz (or any music) is to push the envelope, but not to break it wide open. A river going through a deep gorge is a powerful and beautiful thing, a flood, water without boundaries, is awesome, but ultimately not as interesting. Lee varies the density of feeling throughout the CD, the placid and familiar Someone to Watch Over Me is given a poetic and delicate reading by Lee, but while the listener understands the language used, it remains fresh and satisfying. It's followed by Deception and Tobacco Monkey, the latter alternating a dissonant tenor solo with a stride piano vamp alternating with a restatement of John Gross's themes. Then Gross picks up the boogie beat, finally finishing with the contrasting off kilter pairing of the old and new. An altogether satisfying piece of music. The album (can I still use this term?) finishes with the lovely Harry Warren tune, You're My Everthing, where Gross and Lee once again play the familiar melody off against their expanded modern musical vocabulary. I must say when I first saw the CD I was put off by the cover: a totally illogical approach on my part. This is one of the class jazz albums of the nineties. |
|