BRODIE WEST QUINTET - Meadow of Dreams
Ansible Editions CD AE-003
Brodie West: alto saxophone; Tania Gill: piano; Evan Cartwright: drums, vibraphone, guitar; Josh Cole: bass; Nick Fraser: drums.
Recorded at Canterbury Music Company, Toronto, Canada, February/March 2020
Saxophonist and composer Brodie West has a history of working with a Dutch school of wide-ranging improvisors who stretched between Free Jazz, so-named ‘Anarcho-punk’ and encompassing African dance en route. What’s left of this is heard as unexpected collocations of resonances and rhythms in his new album, Meadow of Dreams. Much of this current music is elegiac; it’s of equable disposition and is very subtle, showing a certain, considered incoherence which mesmerizes the listener.
Passages of hushed reflection are generated by the bass and piano, but they also work at rekindling the inner fires of the music. The drummers meanwhile manipulate the seemingly inanimate channels to arouse the life within. Evan Cartwright is particularly exuberant in his jubilations on both guitar and vibes, bringing complete, profound and reverberating consistency to the conformations.
Brodie West has frequently played improvised gigs and with a wide range of creative musicians, also working as composer. He has worked in varying, investigative fields, including exploratory jaunts into melody and new grounds in rhythm. His groups have often included two or three percussionists.
West’s compositions are very loosely structured, leaving lots of room for musicians to add their own elements, to come along and enjoy the framework and feel free to develop it in their own way. This is true of the present album and you can hear it in the four players behind him. His overt, melodic dream is crystal clear in the exquisitely poignant song that is the title-piece of this album: Meadow of Dreams. It is discordant and mournfully yearning, hauntingly beautiful.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
Ansible Editions CD AE-003
Brodie West: alto saxophone; Tania Gill: piano; Evan Cartwright: drums, vibraphone, guitar; Josh Cole: bass; Nick Fraser: drums.
Recorded at Canterbury Music Company, Toronto, Canada, February/March 2020
Saxophonist and composer Brodie West has a history of working with a Dutch school of wide-ranging improvisors who stretched between Free Jazz, so-named ‘Anarcho-punk’ and encompassing African dance en route. What’s left of this is heard as unexpected collocations of resonances and rhythms in his new album, Meadow of Dreams. Much of this current music is elegiac; it’s of equable disposition and is very subtle, showing a certain, considered incoherence which mesmerizes the listener.
Passages of hushed reflection are generated by the bass and piano, but they also work at rekindling the inner fires of the music. The drummers meanwhile manipulate the seemingly inanimate channels to arouse the life within. Evan Cartwright is particularly exuberant in his jubilations on both guitar and vibes, bringing complete, profound and reverberating consistency to the conformations.
Brodie West has frequently played improvised gigs and with a wide range of creative musicians, also working as composer. He has worked in varying, investigative fields, including exploratory jaunts into melody and new grounds in rhythm. His groups have often included two or three percussionists.
West’s compositions are very loosely structured, leaving lots of room for musicians to add their own elements, to come along and enjoy the framework and feel free to develop it in their own way. This is true of the present album and you can hear it in the four players behind him. His overt, melodic dream is crystal clear in the exquisitely poignant song that is the title-piece of this album: Meadow of Dreams. It is discordant and mournfully yearning, hauntingly beautiful.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
