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Tony Malaby: Adobe

By AAJ Staff
December 26, 2004
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As he mentioned in last month's issue of All About Jazz-Los Angeles , saxophonist Tony Malaby finds great challenges and rewards from being a jazz musician in New York City, "It's such a wonderful place. I continue to get my butt kicked every week." What ever has not killed him has certainly made him stronger, as evidenced by Adobe, Malaby's fourth solo album. A work enriched greatly by the lively and sincere musical relationship among Malaby, Drew Gress (bass), and Paul Motian (drums), Adobe moves in assured, sinuous grooves of mind and soul. The five originals and four covers are all treated with an unhurried pace that primarily showcase Malaby's melodic dissections, but they also show the dynamic support in rhythm by bassist Gress and drummer Motian.

Ideas of jazz past and present flow throughout the album, with rightful comparisons to Sonny Rollins' piano-less trios of the '60s. Malaby and crew do more than scour through jazz' yesterdays for modern templates, though. There is an interconnected, easily accessible nature to this album that speaks of today. The trio's shifts and transitions in beats and moods are done with the seamless speed and ease of a download. Taking for granted that it is just there, that it just happens, Adobe is missed, like any useful modern application, once you are without it.

~ Germein Linares

Track Listing

1 Humpty Dumpty 5:28 2 Maine 6:12 3 Adobe Blues 4:41 4 Dorotea la Cautiva Luna 9:28 5 No Brainer 5:41 6 Mia Malaby 5:46 7 What Is This Thing Called Love 4:49 8 Cosas 6:28 9 Gone 3:56

Personnel

Drew Gress: Bass; Tony Malaby: Soprano, Tenor Sax; Paul Motian: Drums.

Album information

Title: Adobe | Year Released: 2004 | Record Label: Sunnyside Records

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