ROGER BEAUJOLAIS - Dreamscapes
Down Home Records - available on Bandcamp
Roger Beaujolais (vibraphone)
Recorded at Down Home Studio in 2005
It is hard to believe that this is Beaujolais’ first solo album – that is to say, he has worked with a plethora of jazz greats and evolved his style over his long career to embrace jump jive, straight-ahead, Latin, acid jazz and funk, only now producing these, perhaps uncategorisable gems of fragility; thirty-four short, completely improvised pieces ranging from 59 seconds to 2 minutes 48 seconds in duration.
The pieces, one assumes, would have been given their names after recording. Naming a piece of music, or a painting is often difficult for the artist, but Beaujolais has completed this task admirably.
From the beginning, the icicle-invoking Fractals perfectly traces the visual appearance of a gradually freezing pond and Modal Mood, with its sustained unison ostinato bass atop which are carefully placed, shimmering chords; eminently fit their titles.
Rainbow has a low-key groove to it, perhaps a nod to the vibraphonist’s years signed to the Acid Jazz label and his love of the genre, then it ends with an inconclusive and vaguely unsettling tremolo chord, leaving the listener unsure as to the mood of the outcome. The wittily named Call an Ambience makes liberal use of sustain to trick the listener into thinking there are two players, each juxtaposing a new motif and developing each other’s ideas.
Throughout the album, Beaujolais employs the vibraphone’s tremolo as a delay technique to give a pulse on several of the tracks and is a master at layering the notes to create the illusion of multiple players. The standout tracks on this album are difficult to choose, as there are so many of them, and they all have their own character despite their fleeting nature, but in the event of having to do so, Fractals stands out as a first pick, as does the final piece, Shockwaves, which uses a repeated closely voiced chord with pulsing tremolo perhaps to imitate an echo or other reverberation.
Fans of Beaujolais’ other albums will enjoy Dreamscapes immensely, as will new listeners searching for perhaps a mellow antidote to staged and arranged pieces or contemplative late-night listening.
Reviewed by Wendy Kirkland
Down Home Records - available on Bandcamp
Roger Beaujolais (vibraphone)
Recorded at Down Home Studio in 2005
It is hard to believe that this is Beaujolais’ first solo album – that is to say, he has worked with a plethora of jazz greats and evolved his style over his long career to embrace jump jive, straight-ahead, Latin, acid jazz and funk, only now producing these, perhaps uncategorisable gems of fragility; thirty-four short, completely improvised pieces ranging from 59 seconds to 2 minutes 48 seconds in duration.
The pieces, one assumes, would have been given their names after recording. Naming a piece of music, or a painting is often difficult for the artist, but Beaujolais has completed this task admirably.
From the beginning, the icicle-invoking Fractals perfectly traces the visual appearance of a gradually freezing pond and Modal Mood, with its sustained unison ostinato bass atop which are carefully placed, shimmering chords; eminently fit their titles.
Rainbow has a low-key groove to it, perhaps a nod to the vibraphonist’s years signed to the Acid Jazz label and his love of the genre, then it ends with an inconclusive and vaguely unsettling tremolo chord, leaving the listener unsure as to the mood of the outcome. The wittily named Call an Ambience makes liberal use of sustain to trick the listener into thinking there are two players, each juxtaposing a new motif and developing each other’s ideas.
Throughout the album, Beaujolais employs the vibraphone’s tremolo as a delay technique to give a pulse on several of the tracks and is a master at layering the notes to create the illusion of multiple players. The standout tracks on this album are difficult to choose, as there are so many of them, and they all have their own character despite their fleeting nature, but in the event of having to do so, Fractals stands out as a first pick, as does the final piece, Shockwaves, which uses a repeated closely voiced chord with pulsing tremolo perhaps to imitate an echo or other reverberation.
Fans of Beaujolais’ other albums will enjoy Dreamscapes immensely, as will new listeners searching for perhaps a mellow antidote to staged and arranged pieces or contemplative late-night listening.
Reviewed by Wendy Kirkland
