Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Jane Ira Bloom: Early Americans

5

Jane Ira Bloom: Early Americans

By

View read count
Jane Ira Bloom: Early Americans
One jazz music's premier soprano saxophonists, Jane Ira Bloom, crafted a career-defining recording with Sixteen Sunsets (Outline Records, 2013). So how does she follow that up? With an alteration of her quartet trajectory. Bloom's recorded output has consisted, over a career that began in the late 90s, of a series of mostly quartet sets, featuring terrific pianists, including Fred Hersch and Jamie Saft and Dominic Fallacaro in the piano chair.

For Early Americans, the piano disappears, and Bloom goes with the trio approach: soprano, bass and drums.

Where Sixteen Sunsets brimmed with a nuanced majesty—gorgeous familiar ballads, with a generous sprinkling of inspired originals, laid down by the most adept quartet craftsmanship, with Dominic Falacaro on piano, anchored by drummer Matt Wilson and bassist Cameron Brown, Early Americans, with its more spacious trio approach, has a feeling of fun and loose-limbed spontaneity. In a set of Bloom originals—with the exception of Leonard Bernstein's "Somewhere" closing out the disc—the music has an elasticity and bounce, and freedom afforded by the lack of a chording instrument. It's also an odd mix of edgy funkiness combined with a spiritually-tinged exploratory verve.

"Song Patrol" opens the set with a joyful ebullience, as Bobby Previte's drums and Mark Helias' bass bounce around Bloom's fluid soprano. Most reviews of Bloom's work mention the beauty of her tone. It is here and is, as always, exquisite—pure, vibrato-less sonic gold. "Nearly (for Kenny Wheeler)" features Bloom unaccompanied, sounding as if she's on a religious pilgrimage. "Hips and Sticks" shuffles and sizzles and rattles on down the road; "Singing The Triangle" seems like a zen poem inside an insistent groove.

Bernstein's "Somewhere," with Bloom alone with her horn, is unadorned loveliness—a straightforward rendering of one of the most beautiful melodies, closing out another of Jane Ira Bloom's first-rate recordings.

Track Listing

Song Patrol; Dangerous Times; Nearly (For Kenny Wheeler); Hips & Sticks; Singing the Triangle; Other Eyes; Rhyme or Rhythm; Mind Gray River; Cornets of Paradise; Say More; Gateway to Progress; Big Bill; Somewhere.

Personnel

Jane Ira Bloom
saxophone, soprano

Jane Ira Bloom: soprano saxophone; Mark Helias: bass; Bobby Previte: drums.

Album information

Title: Early Americans | Year Released: 2016 | Record Label: Outline

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




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.