Copy/Paste any items you wish to purchase into an https secure web-email window.
Artist: JACAM MANRICKS With BEN MONDER & TYSHAWN SOREY Title: Labyrinth Label: Manricks Country: USA Format: CD Status: AVAILABLE $15.00
Description: Featuring Jacam Manricks on alto & soprano saxes, flutes, clarinets & compositions, Ben Monder on guitars, Jacob Sacks on piano, Thomas Morgan on acoustic bass and Tyshawn Sorey on drums plus a chamber orchestra on two tracks. Just about every week I get a promo disc in the mail from someone I know little or nothing about and am then surprised to find another great musician and/or composer to rave about. This week's award for best undiscovered gem goes to Jacam Manricks, whose quintet disc with an all-star NY crew has knocked me out. This looks to be Jacam's second disc as a leader and he has worked with Australian pianist Barney McAll. He teaches at the Manhattan School of Music and has done his fair share of Broadway shows. None of that has much bearing on how great this disc is.
"Portal" begins our journey with a short piece that moves in circles and is complex yet calm at the same time. "Micro-Gravity" is influenced by Arnold Schoenberg and some oblique harmonies with a chamber orchestra floating around the quintet in a most cerebral way. It is a treat to hear the great Ben Monder take sublime floating solo while the chamber group hover around him. Jacam is also a member of the chamber orchestra and takes thoughtful solo from within their cloud dance. The title track is stunning, sort of M-Base like but slowed down a bit with a great slow-burning sax solo from Jacam. Ben Monder plays superb acoustic guitar on the exquisite yet melancholy "Move On" which features a lovely soprano solo from Jacam. "Cloisters" reminds me of the complex yet elegant blend of styles found in Third Stream music, something we don't hear much of nowadays. I dig the way Jacob Sacks piano solo starts slowly and builds to more rich and intricate waves which is then followed by a fine solo from Manricks which evolves in a similar way as it moves through sections. Mr Manricks' music often seems one way on the surface yet reveals other ideas underneath when we take the time to listen and absorb. One of the things that I dig about this disc is the way some of these players are provided with the challenge of playing something quite different from we have come to expect from them. Hence, we hear Jacob Sacks and Tyshawn Sorey playing in new ways that would make it difficult to tell who they were in a blindfold test. Without a doubt this is this week's greatest discovery. It is now your turn to collect the rewards found within. - Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery
| Artist: JACAM MANRICKS With BEN MONDER & TYSHAWN SOREY |
| Title: Labyrinth |
| Label: Manricks Country: USA |
| Format: CD Status: AVAILABLE $15.00 |
| Description: Featuring Jacam Manricks on alto & soprano saxes, flutes, clarinets & compositions, Ben Monder on guitars, Jacob Sacks on piano, Thomas Morgan on acoustic bass and Tyshawn Sorey on drums plus a chamber orchestra on two tracks. Just about every week I get a promo disc in the mail from someone I know little or nothing about and am then surprised to find another great musician and/or composer to rave about. This week's award for best undiscovered gem goes to Jacam Manricks, whose quintet disc with an all-star NY crew has knocked me out. This looks to be Jacam's second disc as a leader and he has worked with Australian pianist Barney McAll. He teaches at the Manhattan School of Music and has done his fair share of Broadway shows. None of that has much bearing on how great this disc is. "Portal" begins our journey with a short piece that moves in circles and is complex yet calm at the same time. "Micro-Gravity" is influenced by Arnold Schoenberg and some oblique harmonies with a chamber orchestra floating around the quintet in a most cerebral way. It is a treat to hear the great Ben Monder take sublime floating solo while the chamber group hover around him. Jacam is also a member of the chamber orchestra and takes thoughtful solo from within their cloud dance. The title track is stunning, sort of M-Base like but slowed down a bit with a great slow-burning sax solo from Jacam. Ben Monder plays superb acoustic guitar on the exquisite yet melancholy "Move On" which features a lovely soprano solo from Jacam. "Cloisters" reminds me of the complex yet elegant blend of styles found in Third Stream music, something we don't hear much of nowadays. I dig the way Jacob Sacks piano solo starts slowly and builds to more rich and intricate waves which is then followed by a fine solo from Manricks which evolves in a similar way as it moves through sections. Mr Manricks' music often seems one way on the surface yet reveals other ideas underneath when we take the time to listen and absorb. One of the things that I dig about this disc is the way some of these players are provided with the challenge of playing something quite different from we have come to expect from them. Hence, we hear Jacob Sacks and Tyshawn Sorey playing in new ways that would make it difficult to tell who they were in a blindfold test. Without a doubt this is this week's greatest discovery. It is now your turn to collect the rewards found within. - Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery |