Cellist Erik Friedlander has covered multiple geographies in his career, scoring creatively with his more klezmer-colored explorations. The quartet he leads here, however, is altogether different, creating a rubbery chamber music feel through the electric bass of Stomu Takeishi and the percussion of Satoshi Takeishi, which leans away from traditional kit drumming and toward the finer punctuations of hand-hit drums. Adding the polished alto sax of Andy Laster, the group tacks cleanly with pointed rhythmic lines, a mostly bowed cello that sings across the top, and the sax entwined in the stringy, woodsy tonal spread. Never one to abandon the jazz repertoire, Friedlander selects a trio of jazz curve balls near the end of Topaz, beginning with Miles Davis's mid-1960s adventure piece, "Tout de Suite" (which held clues to the trumpeter's oncoming submersion in electric avant jazz-funk), and continuing with a thrilling, bass-busy take on Eric Dolphy's "Hat and Beard" (a paean to Thelonious Monk) and then a delicate reading of Dolphy's loveliest tune, "Something Sweet, Something Tender." The mix of a deeply woodsy cello and the other well-drawn tone colors and textures here is wonderful. --Andrew Bartlett
Topaz,Topaz,Siam,Avant-Garde Jazz,Jazz,Modern Creative,Pop,Popular Music
Jazz Music:
- Traveler
- Trio - Russ Freeman/Richard Twardzik [Import] [Limited Edition] [Original recording remastered]
- Un Respiro [Import]
- Under the Nightlight
- What If
- 2 Compositions (Jarvenpaa) 1988, Ensemble Braxtonia
- A Salute to Benny Carter
- At Town Hall [Import] [Original recording remastered]
- Ballroom Compilation [Import]
- Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy - The Jazz Ambassadors
Jazz Music
Vol. 3-Floor Filler Killers-New Directions [Import]
You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk, Pt. 2 [CD-single] [Enhanced] [Import]
Zay El Hawa//Oulli Haga [Import]