Ernest Dawkins New Horizons Ensemble: Chicago Now / vol. 1

Avant Jazz / Free Improvisation / Avant-Garde
premiera polska: 2003-06-01,
Wydawnicto Audiofilskie
kontynent: Ameryka Północna
kraj: USA
opakowanie: Jewelcaseowe etui
opis:
HI-End.pl nr 4 rekomendacja magazynu
'...Ernest Dawkins reprezentuje muzykę łączącą tradycje afrykańskie i amerykańskie. Jego wypowiedź muzyczna jest oparta na podkreślaniu charakterystycznych motywów rytmicznych tradycji afrykańskiej przy jednoczesnym 'zachodnim' sposobie komponowania. Jednak nie da się ukryć, że jego niezwykły talent nie dotyczy tylko sfery muzyczno-wykonawczej, ale także oryginalnych kompozycji. Z jednej strony całość materiału, jak i poszczególnych utworów była dokładnie zaplanowana, aczkolwiek wiele też zależało od inspiracji daną chwila. Doskonałe połączenie tych przeciwieństw, a także ogromna witalność muzyków sprawiły, iż płyta jest bardzo interesująca...'

Editor's Info:
"Ernest Dawkins' Chicago Now (vol 1) is definitely in the category of lively, colorful music and is full of surprises and unpredictable music. He and his versatile sidemen perform a wide variety of originals. Improvisation #1 evolves from sound explorations to a riff section and back while Improvisation #2 is a lowdown but spacey blues. The longer pieces tend to be episodic and a little reminiscent of Charles Mingus in the way they reinvent the past a bit to form a new and uncertain future. Dawkins' fiery alto playing on Dream For Rahsaan is a tribute to Roland Kirk. The final three numbers are consistently exciting, trumpeter Ameen Muhammad adds power to the group, trombonist Steve Berry blends well with Dawkins' alto and the pianoless rhythm section is alert and driving. This is a highly recommended disc that keeps alive the Chicago AACM tradition."
Scott Yanow, Cadence, December 1996

…The remaining music includes some more obvious homages to musical heroes in the New Horizons pantheon. For instance, trombonist Steve Berry's lovely "Dream For Rahsaan" memorialises Roland Kirk, discovering an almost flute-like quality in the densely textured wind chorale that opens the piece. When Dawkins' alto saxophone blossoms up out of the theme for his solo, his choppy phrasing wrestles with the stately tempo and sets up a spectacular tension, which resolves in the long-limbed guitar lines of Parker, and in the light, dancing elegance of Berry's own solo.
Meanwhile, both "Zera" (which uses modal composition to pepper the harmony with fourths and fifths) and the recently penned "Flowers For The Soul" refer back to Ornette Coleman. On the episodic "Zera," another gently textured theme opens into an exotic section at full throttle; but it is Dawkins' own solo that strikes the Ornette allusion, with its hard sound and blurred-focus articulation. "Flowers," Dawkins says, is actually dedicated to Ornette: "I was inspired by his music, and I wanted to write something kind of delicate in the beginning, then kind of spatial but intense in the next. It reminds me of Ornette's phrasing." So will the sax solo, which again suggests the pioneering altoist's own innovations of saxophone technique not to mention the way in which all this music benefits, if only indirectly, from Ornette's trailblazing. And when Muhammad begins to reiterate the theme behind Dawson, it serves to remind us that this band exhibits the same cooperative democracy that Ornette perfected in his groups of the late 50s and early 60s.
Muhammad enters on a more typical note hot, brash, and searingly articulate when it comes time to solo on "Running From The Rain"; throughout the album, he captures the spirit of trumpeters from Armstrong up to Lester Bowie, stoking the fire whenever he gets the chance. As for the title, Dawkins likens the song to "when you're a kid and and you're outside playing and you see the rain coming. Metaphorically, it's as if you're running from the pitfalls of life, the darker side of life. It's just human nature," he adds. "And sometimes, it's good to run."
I've saved "Bold Souls" and "Improvisation #1" for last, because they provide such an effective set of bookends for New Horizons' history. "Bold Souls", the oldest piece in this collection and one of the first pieces in the New Horizons book, took shape in the late 70s but has lain dormant since the 80s. Dawkins explains why: "I wrote it to be played on the soprano sax, which was new to me at the time. But the soprano got stolen, so we stopped playing it for a while. See, I don't like to cross instrumentation; if I write a song for soprano or tenor, I want it to stay there." The tune on which most of the players use the traditional practice of rifling as a structural element of their solos resembles a minor blues. But instead of resolving in the last two measures (the way an actual blues would work), each chorus resolves on the first measure of the succeeding chorus. That comes as some surprise; so does the fact that the title inspired the naming of Ed Wilkerson's well-known octet instead of vice versa. ("I wrote it for a quartet gig that featured Ed," recalls Dawkins, "and he liked the composition and the title" as Wilkerson's band, the 8 Bold Souls, will attest.)
As for "Improvisation #1," it represents one of the newest New Horizons pieces, and even one new direction for the band. "Almost nothing was prefigured for this one," says Dawkins; "I wanted to write it 'live', as we played it in the studio." Totally improvised, it coalesces out of a cloud of percussion and trombone, and as it begins to brighten and shimmy, becomes more and more rhythmic; it builds to a crescendo and ends on the high note Dawkins had set as the endpoint. "For something like this to work, you have to know who you're playing with, and the kind of thing they sparkle on."
Dawkins hopes to perform more pieces like this in the future. But wait. Isn't this exactly the kind of thing New Honzons wanted to get away from? Didn't the Art. Ensemble prove the utility of this kind of music so that others wouldn't have to?
"Well, the main purpose of the band is still to combine the new and the old," says Dawkins. "But I think conceptually I'm getting ready to do some other things with the group. Now that we have established that first part, maybe it's time for US to take it in another direction." Surprise, surprise.
by Neil Tesser, Playboy Magazine

muzycy:
Ernest Dawkins alto sax, tenor sax, flute, percussion, vocals; Steve Berry trombone, percussion; Ameen Muhammad trumpet, percussion, vocals; Jeffery Parker electric guitar; Yosef Ben Israel bass; Reggie Nicholson drums, percussion

utwory:
1. Improvisation #1 (Ernest 'Khabeer' Dawkins) 6:24
2. The Time Has Come (Ernest 'Khabeer' Dawkins) 14:37
3. Improvisation #2 (My Baby Blues) (Ernest 'Khabeer' Dawkins) 3:37
4. Bould Souls (Ernest 'Khabeer' Dawkins) 7:44
5. Dream For Rahsaan (Steve Berry) 10:20
6. Zera (Ernest 'Khabeer' Dawkins) 10:53
7. Flowers for the Soul (Ernest 'Khabeer' Dawkins) 12:20
8. Runnin' From the Train (Ernest 'Khabeer' Dawkins) 6:04

total time - 67:06
nagrano: 1994
more info: www.silkheart.se