Saxophonist Odean Pope delighted the audience with fabulous arrangements of acknowledged tunes with his expansive Saxophone Choir.
The sparkling harmonic sequences led to soulful approaches and the balance between the improvised and the arranged was awesome.
They kicked in with “To the Roach”, a piece dedicated to the drummer Max Roach, and proceeded with bubbling sax improvisations on “Coltrane Time”, Pope’s ballad “Cis” and an Afro-Latin piece packed with baritone fills whose title I couldn’t figure out. They concluded with a short orchestration of Coltrane’s “Giant Steps”.
My favorite performance of the festival (no doubt about it!), was Darius Jones, who killed it without even blinking, leaving everyone in a suspended sort of ecstasy. He brought an ultra responsive, appealingly bullish rhythm section with him known as Farmers By Nature, whose inspired members consist of Craig Taborn on piano, William Parker on acoustic bass, and Gerald Cleaver on drums. This striking non-stop performance stirred a tornado of emotions as sonic masses were built, gaining consistent textures to be disintegrated in the next minute with immaculate expression. Jones, mighty without being painful, even put his sax to weep a couple times. …show more content…
A blast that needs to be recorded!!
*Note: My only complaint about this particular show was its short duration. I was so mesmerized that I couldn’t move from where I was to take a proper picture of them since Clara couldn’t attend. My
The sparkling harmonic sequences led to soulful approaches and the balance between the improvised and the arranged was awesome.
They kicked in with “To the Roach”, a piece dedicated to the drummer Max Roach, and proceeded with bubbling sax improvisations on “Coltrane Time”, Pope’s ballad “Cis” and an Afro-Latin piece packed with baritone fills whose title I couldn’t figure out. They concluded with a short orchestration of Coltrane’s “Giant Steps”.
My favorite performance of the festival (no doubt about it!), was Darius Jones, who killed it without even blinking, leaving everyone in a suspended sort of ecstasy. He brought an ultra responsive, appealingly bullish rhythm section with him known as Farmers By Nature, whose inspired members consist of Craig Taborn on piano, William Parker on acoustic bass, and Gerald Cleaver on drums. This striking non-stop performance stirred a tornado of emotions as sonic masses were built, gaining consistent textures to be disintegrated in the next minute with immaculate expression. Jones, mighty without being painful, even put his sax to weep a couple times. …show more content…
A blast that needs to be recorded!!
*Note: My only complaint about this particular show was its short duration. I was so mesmerized that I couldn’t move from where I was to take a proper picture of them since Clara couldn’t attend. My