21 September 2009
Audiophile Audition
John Henry


Fred Simon has had an over 35-year career of recordings, live performances, film, dance, TV, in formats ranging from solo piano to symphony orchestra. He has six previous albums of his own highly original, tonal music as well as being included in numerous compilations. I recall greatly enjoying his previous albums Short Story and Musaic. One critic described Simon as "modern music's middle ground between jazz and classical."

However, it was the inclusion here of super-versatile reed player Paul McCandless (with whom Simon has recorded before) that immediately attracted me to this new CD. As expected, there is a strong similarity to McCandless' work with his membership in the masterful group Oregon, but Simon's original compositions set things apart. The title tune is an anthem honoring the great American folk singer and humanist Pete Seeger. The only one of the dozen tracks not written by Simon is In a Silent Way - a tribute to both its composer Joe Zawinul and of course Miles Davis. Song of the Sea is an instrumental version of a work originally written for choir and chamber ensemble for a synagogue in Chicago, and Simple Psalm is a variant of a piece Simon originally had on one of the excellent Windham Hill Winter Solstice compendiums.

McCandless gets a wonderful poetic and nostalgic sound out of his various reeds that is quite different from the usual tenor or alto sax or standard clarinet. Being an offshoot of the British component-maker Naim, you can be sure the fidelity of this CD is the best that can be squeezed out of the compromised 44.1K format. (Isn't it interesting that some of the best American jazz now comes out on European or UK record labels, just as some of the best American symphonies do?)