JOEL HARRISON - Still Point: Turning World
Whirlwind WR4745
Joel Harrison - guitar; Anupam Shobakar - sarod; Ben Wendel - saxophone, bassoon; Dan Weiss - drums, tabla; Hans Glawischnig -bass; Stephan Crump - bass; Selvaganesh - kanjira, udu, konnakol; Nittin Mitta - tabla
Plus the Talujon Percussion Quartet
Joel Harrison’s musical career spans twenty albums as a leader across an astonsishing breadth of musical genres, from jazz to blues to classical to Appalachian folk music and more besides. This project allows him to explore the musical legacy of South Asia in a manner that would be familiar to fans of Ralph Towner’s work as part of Oregon. Album opener ‘Raindrops In Uncommon Times” sets out the stall: there’s steel string acoustic guitar chordal textures, tumbling percussion, hypnotic marimbas, konnakol vocalisations and sarod improvisations from the South Asian tradition alongside dirty distorted blues guitar tones and some superfast post-Mclaughlin shredding to boot. Somehow Harrison makes it all work together: his engagement with the principles of South Asian music seems to be deep and genuine, enabling him to incorporate its rhythmic and scalar concepts convincingly into his own post-rock/classical/modal jazz take on fusion.
“One Is Really Many” reinforces the Oregon comparison with Wendel’s bassoon standing in for Paul McCandless’ oboe - “Pemanent Impermanence” adds some Scofield-style swagger to the mix plus more marimba and Konnakol derived rhythmic subdivisions before we’re off into a double time D&B type groove, over which Wendel launches into a frantic multi-scalar sax improv. ‘Wind Over Eagle Lake” promises some respite from the frenzy and delivers an oasis of calm via orchestral chimes and ambient percussion: the same textures return for the ominously portentous intro of ‘Creator/Destroyer”, to be joined by a host of other items in a dizzying, mathematically complex piece using the full gamut of Indian and Western orchestral percussion, and thence into a kind of Mahavishnu workout for with a guitar/sarod duet, then a dazzling sax solo over a complex rhythm track with added wah-wah. The levels of imagination and skill from all are superlative and it all adds up to a fascinating and highly original if rather exhausting listening experience.
Reviewed by Eddie Myer
Whirlwind WR4745
Joel Harrison - guitar; Anupam Shobakar - sarod; Ben Wendel - saxophone, bassoon; Dan Weiss - drums, tabla; Hans Glawischnig -bass; Stephan Crump - bass; Selvaganesh - kanjira, udu, konnakol; Nittin Mitta - tabla
Plus the Talujon Percussion Quartet
Joel Harrison’s musical career spans twenty albums as a leader across an astonsishing breadth of musical genres, from jazz to blues to classical to Appalachian folk music and more besides. This project allows him to explore the musical legacy of South Asia in a manner that would be familiar to fans of Ralph Towner’s work as part of Oregon. Album opener ‘Raindrops In Uncommon Times” sets out the stall: there’s steel string acoustic guitar chordal textures, tumbling percussion, hypnotic marimbas, konnakol vocalisations and sarod improvisations from the South Asian tradition alongside dirty distorted blues guitar tones and some superfast post-Mclaughlin shredding to boot. Somehow Harrison makes it all work together: his engagement with the principles of South Asian music seems to be deep and genuine, enabling him to incorporate its rhythmic and scalar concepts convincingly into his own post-rock/classical/modal jazz take on fusion.
“One Is Really Many” reinforces the Oregon comparison with Wendel’s bassoon standing in for Paul McCandless’ oboe - “Pemanent Impermanence” adds some Scofield-style swagger to the mix plus more marimba and Konnakol derived rhythmic subdivisions before we’re off into a double time D&B type groove, over which Wendel launches into a frantic multi-scalar sax improv. ‘Wind Over Eagle Lake” promises some respite from the frenzy and delivers an oasis of calm via orchestral chimes and ambient percussion: the same textures return for the ominously portentous intro of ‘Creator/Destroyer”, to be joined by a host of other items in a dizzying, mathematically complex piece using the full gamut of Indian and Western orchestral percussion, and thence into a kind of Mahavishnu workout for with a guitar/sarod duet, then a dazzling sax solo over a complex rhythm track with added wah-wah. The levels of imagination and skill from all are superlative and it all adds up to a fascinating and highly original if rather exhausting listening experience.
Reviewed by Eddie Myer
