Flesh & Bone
| Flesh & Bone | ||||
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| Studio album by Mike Reed | ||||
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Publication |
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| Label (s) | 482 Music | |||
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Format (s) |
CD |
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Title (number) |
11 |
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running time |
41:17 |
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Michael Lintner, Mike Reed |
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Studio (s) |
Shape Shop and Strobe Recording Studios, Chicago |
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Flesh & Bone is a jazz album by Mike Reed . The recordings were made in February 2016 at the Shape Shop and Strobe Recording Studios and Foxhall Studio in Chicago, as well as field recordings by Mike Reed. The recordings appeared on 482 Music in 2017 .
background
The music on Flesh & Bone by drummer Mike Reed was triggered by a harrowing incident on April 4, 2009, which he experienced in 2009 with his band People, Places & Things in Přerov , a small town in the Czech Republic. Wrong instructions brought the group close to a neo-Nazi rally with 700 participants, which resulted in several street battles with the police; according to newspaper reports, the right-wing extremists were planning a Roma pogrom. Reed and his colleagues managed to get to safety; Reed was understandably shaken and determined to process the episode through music, wrote Troy Dostert in his review of the album. "But it is less the specific event in question than a broader reflection on the ongoing challenges of race and identity that enliven Reed's compositions on this record."
In the group around Mike Reed, Greg Ward plays alto saxophone, Tim Haldeman on tenor saxophone, Ben LaMar Gay on cornet, Jason Stein on bass clarinet and Jason Roebke on bass; Added to this was the poet and spoken word artist Marvin Tate, with whom Mike Reed wrote the pieces in question, for three titles in this production.
Reed's musical inspirations come from a broad spectrum of the jazz tradition, wrote Dostert, from the post-bop groove of the opening track "Voyagers" to the Mingus- like ensemble voices of "Conversation Music", the infectious funk of "A Separatist Party". and the bebop tone of "Imaginary Friend".
Pieces that create spaces alternate with longer compositions, with the first longer piece “SF Sky” adding the poetry of Marvin Tate in a recitation and reflecting on manifestations of the race. Reed tells of the events in a long essay in the liner notes and makes comments on each of the eleven compositions on the album.
Track list
- Mike Reed: Flesh & Bone (482 Music 482-1100)
- Voyagers 3:19
- First Reading: SF Sky (Mike Reed / Marvin Tate) 1:46
- Conversation Music 5:18
- A Separatist Party 3:30
- The Magic Drum 1.19
- My Imaginary Friend ( Tyshawn Sorey ) 7:19
- I Want to Be Small - For Archibald Motley 3:53
- Second Reading: Me Day (Mike Reed / Marvin Tate) 1:25
- Watching the Boats 4:25
- Call Off Tomorrow (My Life Up Until the Present) (Mike Reed / Marvin Tate) 4:56
- Scenes from the Next Life (Mike Reed / Marvin Tate) 3:33
- All other compositions are by Mike Reed.
reception
According to Troy Dostert, who awarded the album a four-star rating on the Free Jazz Blog , the music on this memorable and invigorating album evokes a variety of emotional registers and stylistic approaches. With a little more than 40 minutes, it is not a long recording, but it grabs you suddenly, so that every moment counts. While it may be tempting for some listeners to view this as some sort of “protest” recording, Dostert said, in light of “the encounter with racial hostility it sparked, Reed was more interested in asking questions than resolute responses Reed is firmly anchored in the legacy of Charles Mingus or Rahsaan Roland Kirk and greatly appreciates the ironic and absurd - as does Marvin Tate, whose disrespectful spoken word segments on three of the titles are both powerful and disarming. Nowhere is this as obvious as in “Call of Tomorrow”; the piece starts with Tate declaring that "the weight of anger ... can hold you back," but soon turns into Tate's self (and audience) derisive remark: "This is a shitty poem. I'm shitty because I lived it ... and you all shit because you heard it ”.
This is "serious music, but its seriousness is partly due to their reluctance to take themselves too seriously." According to the author, it is thanks to Reed's long-time partners Ward, Haldeman and Roebke that they so skillfully embody all the stylistic impulses can. But the new players turned out to be just as valuable; Both the warmth and acrobatic dexterity of Jason Stein's bass clarinet are constants throughout the album, and LaMar Gay's clear-grain cornet contributions are also crucial to the band's collective sound.
Derek Taylor wrote in Dusted that having an ugly and traumatic experience and turning it into art is not the preferred manifestation of this type of dynamic for most artists. The event at a Czech train station was more than seven years ago when the recording was made, but Reed and his colleagues still felt the psychological and emotional reverberation. As with any cathartic venture, Taylor continued, "music is defined not so much by the event that influences its impulse, but as an organized and compelling response to it."
Bill Meyer wrote in Down Beat that Flesh & Bone was not a direct rendering of what happened that day in 2009, "but a meditation on the cultural heritage" that Reed cherished. The music honors the examples of Duke Ellington , the American painter Archibald Motley and a large number of free jazz drummers from Chicago without openly repeating their varied examples. With its historical depth and powerful performance, the music satisfies on its own terms; by illustrating these qualities, it defies the hateful feelings of the rioters and their kind.
John Frederick Moore (Jazziz) said that Reed has long been able to blend traditional and avant-garde elements, a method he is re-using this rich and diverse material. Regardless of whether it's the high-spirited swing of “Voyagers”, the spiky groove of “A Separatist Party” or the blues-soaked “I Want To Be Small (for Archibald Motley)”, the front line brass harmonizes with “the feeling the urgency that never undermines the melodic precision ”. In "The Magic Drum," Reed explores various percussion instruments (bells, gongs, and the like) to pay tribute to some of the Chicago drummers who inspired him.
While the incident that inspired this work was the embodiment of ugliness, Reed offered a healthy dose of beauty in the shimmering ballads "I Want to Be Small" and "Watching the Boats," Moore noted. The only external signs of anger come from the contributions of the poet Marvin Tate, who contributes excellent spoken word performances on three of the eleven tracks . Even outside the context of the triggering event, this is convincing music, wrote John Frederick Moore - perhaps Reed's best work so far. However, given the current reality in America , this context is crucial.
According to Howard Reich , of a live performance by Mike Reed's project Flesh & Bone attended, described it as a carefully planned work've created so meticulously in which Reed's passages for soloists, duos, trios. Musically, Mike Reed's band, expanded from a regular quartet to a sextet plus spoken word, offers its characteristic fusion of slim bebop and more experimental additions.
Web links
- Listing of the album on Allmusic (English). Retrieved June 6, 2020.
- Information about the album at Bandcamp
Individual evidence
- ↑ Neonacisté vytáhli na policisty v Přerově zbraně a hrozili bitkami. In: idnes.cz. April 4, 2009, accessed June 6, 2020 .
- ↑ a b c Troy Dostert: Mike Reed: Flesh & Bone (482 Music 2017). Free Jazz Blog, August 28, 2017, accessed May 15, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Derek Taylor: Mike Reed - Flesh & Bone (482 Music). Dusted, September 16, 2017, accessed May 25, 2020 .
- ↑ Mike Reed: Flesh & Bone at Discogs
- ^ Bill Meyer: Mike Reed: Flesh & Bone (482 Music). Down Beat, August 1, 2017, accessed May 25, 2020 .
- ^ A b John Frederick Moore: Mike Reed's Flesh & Bone - Flesh & Bone (482 Music). Jazziz, March 28, 2018, accessed June 2, 2020 .
- ↑ Howard Reich: Mike Reed's 'Flesh & Bone' a captivating exploration of terrifying event. Chicago Reader, April 28, 2017, accessed May 26, 2020 .