ROB LUFT - Life Is The Dancer
Edition Records EDN1152
Rob Luft - guitar; Joe Wright - tenor saxophone; Joe Webb - hammond organ, piano; Tom McCredie - bass; Corrie Dick - drums
Featuring: Byron Wallen - tpt (tracks 2 & 10); Luna Cohen - voc (tracks 2 & 10)
Rob’s last run of public appearances were with the very in-the-tradition organ and tough tenor combo with Dave O Higgins: this new release shines the spotlight back on his own eclectic versatility. While he’s chosen a crew of top-drawer young jazz musicians to work with on this programme of Luft originals, there’s a wide range of international influences at work, and the common thread is a preoccupation with melody and an eagerness to engage with the many folk and pop applications of his chosen instrument. In this respect there are parallels with Julian Lage, with whom Luft also shares a delicate precision of articulation and a wonderfully accurate rhythmic sense. There are definite echoes of the hypnotic grooves of the West African guitar tradition in ‘Life Is A Dancer’ (enhanced by Byron Wallen’s lush-toned trumpet), while ‘Tanpura’ has a brief glimpse of the vocal glissando technique of South Asia, but Luft is too canny to succumb to the temptations of shallow musical tourism, but rather incorporates the techniques into his own idiosyncratic fusion. ‘Synesthesia’ is the closest we get to the language of twitchy contemporary jazz, and even here it is tempered by Luft’s accessible melodicism, echoed in Joe Webb’s wonderfully fluent solo. ‘Sad Stars’ has a bucolic mid-western feel that Metheny might appreciate, with Joe Wright’s tenor sax mournfully delicate: Byron Wallen returns on the elegaic closer ‘Expect The Unexpected’ along with Luna Cohen’s evocative vocals, and makes a beautiful closer: while the infectiously grooving ‘Berlin’ makes an irresistible opening invitation, showing how carefully this project has been put together for maximum listening pleasure. Luft only continues to grow in stature as a composer and performer and this latest offering will delight his fans and should widen his audience outside the jazz clubs and beyond.
Reviewed by Eddie Myer
Edition Records EDN1152
Rob Luft - guitar; Joe Wright - tenor saxophone; Joe Webb - hammond organ, piano; Tom McCredie - bass; Corrie Dick - drums
Featuring: Byron Wallen - tpt (tracks 2 & 10); Luna Cohen - voc (tracks 2 & 10)
Rob’s last run of public appearances were with the very in-the-tradition organ and tough tenor combo with Dave O Higgins: this new release shines the spotlight back on his own eclectic versatility. While he’s chosen a crew of top-drawer young jazz musicians to work with on this programme of Luft originals, there’s a wide range of international influences at work, and the common thread is a preoccupation with melody and an eagerness to engage with the many folk and pop applications of his chosen instrument. In this respect there are parallels with Julian Lage, with whom Luft also shares a delicate precision of articulation and a wonderfully accurate rhythmic sense. There are definite echoes of the hypnotic grooves of the West African guitar tradition in ‘Life Is A Dancer’ (enhanced by Byron Wallen’s lush-toned trumpet), while ‘Tanpura’ has a brief glimpse of the vocal glissando technique of South Asia, but Luft is too canny to succumb to the temptations of shallow musical tourism, but rather incorporates the techniques into his own idiosyncratic fusion. ‘Synesthesia’ is the closest we get to the language of twitchy contemporary jazz, and even here it is tempered by Luft’s accessible melodicism, echoed in Joe Webb’s wonderfully fluent solo. ‘Sad Stars’ has a bucolic mid-western feel that Metheny might appreciate, with Joe Wright’s tenor sax mournfully delicate: Byron Wallen returns on the elegaic closer ‘Expect The Unexpected’ along with Luna Cohen’s evocative vocals, and makes a beautiful closer: while the infectiously grooving ‘Berlin’ makes an irresistible opening invitation, showing how carefully this project has been put together for maximum listening pleasure. Luft only continues to grow in stature as a composer and performer and this latest offering will delight his fans and should widen his audience outside the jazz clubs and beyond.
Reviewed by Eddie Myer
