Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Joe Fonda / Carlo Morena / George Schuller: A Drop Of Water

297

Joe Fonda / Carlo Morena / George Schuller: A Drop Of Water

By

View read count
Joe Fonda / Carlo Morena / George Schuller: A Drop Of Water
The rhythm team of bassist Joe Fonda and drummer George Schuller has proven to be a particularly potent one. Their work as half of Conference Call (alongside reed player Gebhard Ullmann and pianist Michael Jefry Stevens) gives that band both compositional and improvisational strength. The same holds true in guitarist Michael Musillami's trio, where they take care of stoking the fires while Musillami takes off on his improvisational flights.

A lesser-known group with a pair of records behind them is Fonda's trio with pianist Carlo Morena. Although an inveterate modernist, favoring the dissonant and devising compositions that take the improviser to the outer fringes, Fonda seems to have a penchant for working with pianists with a strong melodic streak, as evidenced by his 15-year collaboration with Michael Jefry Stevens. Morena clearly falls into this camp. A Drop Of Water is the trio's third recording and while the original drummer was Jeff Hirshfield, Schuller now seems comfortably ensconced in the drum chair.

The program leads off with one of Fonda's most effective compositions "The Wish" (it was the title track on the first Fonda/Stevens album), a piece surprisingly strong on melody with a couple of rhythmic trip-ups, which Morena seems to relish. The latter's "Spacey" is his most substantive piece with he and Fonda playing the theme as Schuller flails away like a perpetual motion machine. Schuller's compositional contribution is "Mirror Images," a slowly unraveling line played in tandem by Morena and Fonda, punctuated by full harmonic chordal bursts. It has an almost Paul Bley-ish quality in its meandering line and Morena plays off it well.

There's also a detour into free improv-spoken word on the title track with recitation by Ilse Pfeifer. A Drop of Water is a strong mainstream/modern piano trio date that finds many avenues to explore within the format.

Track Listing

The Wish; Paert; Mirror Images; A Drop Of Water; Moglichkeiten; Looking For The Lake; Spacey; Voila, La Tendresse; Song For My Mother.

Personnel

Joe Fonda: bass; Carlo Morena: piano; George Schuller: drums; Ilse Pfeifer: spoken word (4, 9).

Album information

Title: A Drop Of Water | Year Released: 2008 | Record Label: Konnex Records

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT



Joe Fonda Concerts


Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

Near

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.