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Thursday, September 13, 2007

Jimmy Weinstein - This Ocean (Ad Hoc 002, 2006) ****


Jimmy Weinstein is a drummer with a very turbulent life, moving between the US and Europe, moving from one city to the other, being taught by top musicians, changing instruments, performing for years as a street musician, ending up at the Spanish Fresh Sound New Talent label where he released some CDs, then releasing this album on his own label with this Japanese trio, consisting of Satoko Fujii on piano, Natsuki Tamura on trumpet and Masa Kamaguchi on bass. You can download the album on payplay.com, and I highly recommend this to anyone with an interest in modern jazz. The music on this CD is wild, broad-minded, moving all over the place, from introvert intimistic sound explorations to very extravert super dynamic exuberant tonal explosions, very free and very open, yet still wonderfully contained and disciplined. The musicians play with great joy and utter concentration, and create music that thunders and clatters, swings and sings, surprises and enthralls, wheeps and wails and laughs, using boppish elements as much as the free-er more creative zones. I cannot sufficiently emphasize the quality of these Japanese musicians - as I've done before on this blog - Fujii and Tamura being among the best you can hear at the moment, and the fact that they are making this album with Weinstein says enough about their respect for his musical vision. And rightly so! Man, man, man, why are some CDs not more promoted? If one CD has been underexposed in the press, it's surely this one. Judge for yourself.

Listen to :
Squalls
East Of Cadiz
Rat
Beaufort's Scale
Go-Getter

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