DANIEL BENNETT GROUP - We Are The Orchestra
Manhattan Daylight Media
Daniel Bennett: alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, flute, piccolo, clarinet, oboe, piano, percussion; Mark Cocheo: electric guitar, banjo, acoustic guitar, nylon string guitar.
Recorded by MP Kuo at MPK Recording Studio, New York
The idea of a duo being called an ‘orchestra’ is amusing; the idea of it being called a ‘group’ named after one of the players is something else. However, rest assured that this is very much a conversation between equals. Both players are proficient multi-instrumentalists. Although you might feel that plucking is inferior to blowing, the music that they produce has a nicely balanced dynamic that conveys a shared sense of sly humour. Partly as a result of the selection of stringed instruments used, and partly from the repetitive rhythmic patterns, the tunes carry a strong feel of ‘Americana’. I’ve put this in quotes to indicate that the tunes might not have the sort of historic provenance that the word conveys and also to suggest that part of the duo’s humour lies in the ways in which all music can be subsumed under a broad swath of American Country and Western. So, there are extracts from opera (they particularly like Verdi, with versions of themes from Ernani, track 4, and Il Travatore, track 7) that, for anyone familiar with the music from these, can sound like a bin-man whistling ‘Nessum Dorma’: there is a tug of snobbish response that such tunes can be popularised, but also an appreciation that great music needs to be shared and not caged in the province of the wealthy or the cultural elite.
Taking this idea that the music, rather than imposing some American hegemony of culture, might be seeking ways to find a common thread across different genres (and, don’t forget that some of Bennett’s work has involved composing incidental music, for instance, for a play about Walt Whitman), then it also comes as no surprise that track 6, ‘Inside our pizza oven’, carries with it a host of thematic references to middle Eastern tones and phrasing. Of course, the question of why this particular tune has musical themes that are not simply ‘Italian’ tells you something about their subversive (but, equally, academic) humour; there is an argument that pizza is older than the Neopolitan dish that we might assume. Whatever. The music here has an off-beat sense of ‘avant-pop’ that is guaranteed to bring a smile to your face and, if you read the tune’s titles, then also gets you trawling through various Search Engines to check that your readings of the tunes make sense…which gets me to think that this is a duo who know their instruments inside out but also enjoy the role of Merry Pranksters (this last phrase just to encourage you onto the internet).
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Manhattan Daylight Media
Daniel Bennett: alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, flute, piccolo, clarinet, oboe, piano, percussion; Mark Cocheo: electric guitar, banjo, acoustic guitar, nylon string guitar.
Recorded by MP Kuo at MPK Recording Studio, New York
The idea of a duo being called an ‘orchestra’ is amusing; the idea of it being called a ‘group’ named after one of the players is something else. However, rest assured that this is very much a conversation between equals. Both players are proficient multi-instrumentalists. Although you might feel that plucking is inferior to blowing, the music that they produce has a nicely balanced dynamic that conveys a shared sense of sly humour. Partly as a result of the selection of stringed instruments used, and partly from the repetitive rhythmic patterns, the tunes carry a strong feel of ‘Americana’. I’ve put this in quotes to indicate that the tunes might not have the sort of historic provenance that the word conveys and also to suggest that part of the duo’s humour lies in the ways in which all music can be subsumed under a broad swath of American Country and Western. So, there are extracts from opera (they particularly like Verdi, with versions of themes from Ernani, track 4, and Il Travatore, track 7) that, for anyone familiar with the music from these, can sound like a bin-man whistling ‘Nessum Dorma’: there is a tug of snobbish response that such tunes can be popularised, but also an appreciation that great music needs to be shared and not caged in the province of the wealthy or the cultural elite.
Taking this idea that the music, rather than imposing some American hegemony of culture, might be seeking ways to find a common thread across different genres (and, don’t forget that some of Bennett’s work has involved composing incidental music, for instance, for a play about Walt Whitman), then it also comes as no surprise that track 6, ‘Inside our pizza oven’, carries with it a host of thematic references to middle Eastern tones and phrasing. Of course, the question of why this particular tune has musical themes that are not simply ‘Italian’ tells you something about their subversive (but, equally, academic) humour; there is an argument that pizza is older than the Neopolitan dish that we might assume. Whatever. The music here has an off-beat sense of ‘avant-pop’ that is guaranteed to bring a smile to your face and, if you read the tune’s titles, then also gets you trawling through various Search Engines to check that your readings of the tunes make sense…which gets me to think that this is a duo who know their instruments inside out but also enjoy the role of Merry Pranksters (this last phrase just to encourage you onto the internet).
Reviewed by Chris Baber
