Artist: Hamiet Bluiett
Album: Blueblack
Genre: Avant-Garde Jazz
Label: Justin Time
Released: 2002
Quality: FLAC (tracks+cue)
Tracklist:
- (You're Still) My Girl (In Spite of Everything) 06:42
- Humpback 06:12
- Zippin' 06:09
- Blueblack / Prelude to a Scream 07:52
- LG's Place 05:17
- Lamentation for JJ / Ballad for Babs 03:10
- Juxtaposition 08:39
- Angles 03:24
- Gittin' It Good 04:15
- Sasa - The Here and Now 03:33
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- Personnel:
- Hamiet Bluiett - Baritone Sax
- James Carter - Contrabass Clarinet,
- Kahil El'Zabar - African Drums, Percussion, Vocals
- Alex Harding - Bass Clarinet, Baritone Sax
- Patience Higgins - Bass Clarinet, Baritone Sax
- Lee Person - Trap Kit
The Bluiett Baritone Saxophone Group strikes again. Four baritone saxes make for quite a wall of low-register sound, and every quartet member but Bluiett -- Patience Higgins, James Carter, and Alex Harding -- doubles on bass clarinet. In Carter's case, make that contra-bass clarinet, an instrument that can cause the room to shake. Since the horns have the bass function covered, all that's needed are drums; hence the presence of trapsman Lee Person and percussionist Kahil El'Zabar. This is a challenging listen, even if it starts with a playful, lushly harmonized "My Girl," the Motown hit. "Humpback," the first of five compositions by Coleridge Taylor Perkinson, immediately follows, its dark, smeary rubato harmonies and ultra-low-end textures evoking the murky world of the whale. Bluiett's contributions ("Blueblack/Prelude to a Scream," "Juxtaposition," "Sasa -- The Here and Now") tend to be more cacophonous, less structured; other tracks evoke a bright dance aesthetic ("Zippin'," "LG's Place"), touching upon what the late Lester Bowie liked to call "great black music." Taylor Perkinson's double tribute "Lamentation for JJ/Ballad for Babs" and his thoughtful "Angles" showcase the more elegant side of the quadruple-baritone configuration.
Review by David R. Adler