Mike Nock and Marty Ehrlich: The Waiting Game

C. Michael Bailey

Senior Contributor since 1997

...wants to know if Gene Harris is playing "Summertime" in Heaven...

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Published: March 1, 2000

Duo. The Waiting Game probably has more in common with Mark Ramsden and Steve Lodder ( Above The Clouds, Naxos Jazz 84041-2) than Buddy DeFranco and Dave McKenna or George Cables and Art Pepper. This disc is almost completely improvisatory in nature, Nock and Ehrlich working from simple motifs with a fair share of famous Nock abstraction. The majority of the pieces are original, excepting Brubeck’s “The Duke” and James P. Johnson’s “Snowy Morning Blues”. Mike Nock is, of course, at the piano with Marty Ehrlich biting a variety of reeds, the bass clarinet most successfully (on :El Testamen de Amelia” and “Jacanori”), His soprano and alto playing are slightly dry and harsh, which is perfect with Nock’s intelligent tonal considerations. Ehrlich’s clarinet is uniformly fine. For Mike Nock’s part, is piano playing is always cutting the edge, very accordion-like in his attack on the notes (or, rather, his sneaking up on them). This is not your traditional reed-piano duo disc...Thank Heavens!

Track Listing: The Waiting Game; Reconciliations; The Duke; Break Time; El Testamen De Amelia; Amhran Pheader Breathnach; Three Postcards; Like Spring; I The Moment; Jacanori; Snowy Morning Blues. (Total Time: 55:40)

Personnel: Mike Nock: Piano; Marty Ehrlich: Saxophones, Clarinets.

Style: Modern Jazz