20 September 2009
This Is Book's MusicJohn Book
Geof Bradfield (tenor saxophone/blue clarinet), Greg Ward (alto saxophone), Jake Vinsel (acoustic and electric bass), and Dave Miller (guitar) are the Rebel Souls lead by drummer Ted Sirota, whose Seize The Time (Naim Jazz) is one of those jazz albums I wish everyone wanted to do and was able to do.
Here's why. This album was recorded in analog and then mastered in digital (Dustin Cammack is listed as the "assistant recording engineer"), so already I'm sold. The end result is an album that sounds beautiful and it makes you wish you were there to witness these guys create this, there's a vibrancy that just makes you smell the room so you can inhale the wood and whatever unknown elements may be lingering in there. Whatever odors that were in the room added something to the inspiration that made them play the way they did on this, with 12 songs that made them play solidly from start to finish.
How many songs by The Clash have you heard reinterpreted with a jazz mask? Probably not a hell of a lot, but it's nice to hear a song transformed in a way not intended, only for it to stand out as a classic piece once again. It sounds like a rendition that would have been approved by a number of jazz legends. One of those legends could have been Charles Mingus, whose own "Free Cell Block F, ‘Tis Nazi U.S.A." is brought forward into the so-called post-racial era of the world, only to reaffirm that deep in its underbelly, the song truly remains the same. "13 De Maio" gets a nice new coating, something that would make Caetano Veloso very proud, and Bradfield's arrangement is sure to make everyone dance at whatever venues they will be playing together.
The liner notes by Sirota indicate that the songs written for and chosen to be covered on this album were selected with a purpose, as they are messages that are being said without words. Without getting too deep into that message (buy the CD and read it for yourself), he is basically saying there's no better time than now to deal with the struggles of the world and turn it into something more positive for anyone. Perhaps Seize The Time will be the catalyst, however small, towards a better way of living.
(NOTE: This album is being sold not only in the CD and MP3 formats, but also as FLAC lossless files, WAV files, and HD WAV and lossless files (24bit 96kHz), so you can burn them to create a DVD-A disc or to play on your stand-alone music servers. Pick your option by clicking the appropriate icons below. I wish more labels would go out of their way to offer their music in this manner. Audiophiles, get ting-a-lay.)