Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Dom Minasi: Eight Hands One Mind

3

Dom Minasi: Eight Hands One Mind

Dom Minasi: Eight Hands One Mind
Restlessly innovative, guitarist Dom Minasi is a stalwart of the creative music scene. A brilliant improviser and composer, Minasi deftly utilizes his inventive ideas as launching points for his equally exciting extemporizations. On the unique Eight Hands One Mind, Minasi joins three other intrepid guitarists for a fiery and poignant tribute to another trailblazer, the late guitarist Bern Nix.

The others in the group are the master of prepared guitar Hans Tammen, the virtuoso Harvey Valdes and the versatile Briggan Krauss who is also an accomplished saxophonist. Together, the four musicians overlap stimulating lines that are often simultaneously dissonant and lyrical. The result is an intriguing and intricate sonic tapestry.

"Sucker's Paradise," for instance, opens contemplatively with a melange of sparse notes and silent pauses punctuated by brief rhythmic vamps. These refrains are themselves quite angular and vibrant. As the piece evolves the ensemble's repartee grows more passionate and delightfully riotous before closing with a return to the dynamic head.

Elsewhere, "Misguided Heart" is a cinematic tune with shimmering melodic fragments coalescing into an expansive soundscape. The individual spontaneous expressions grow and expand with measured fury and engaging atonality. A melancholic mood prevails as twangy strums and forlorn pizzicato enhance the theatricality of the exchanges.

Similarly "Dancing Rosetta'' has a dramatic ambiance with abstract dialogues contributing to the tension. The performance is peppered with latin hints sometimes, and blistering rocking chords at others. Nocturnesque and ethereal phrases bisect the track, building a Zen serenity. A provocative and haunting interplay of resonant strings echoing one another concludes the album on a high note.

As the title suggests, Eight Hands One Mind is more about the cohesive ensemble sound than individual solos. Yet the individuality of each artist still comes through loud and clear. The inner synergy of the group is manifested in balancing their distinctive styles with the shared musical vision. This intelligent and moving album is an apt homage to the ground-breaking Nix.

Track Listing

Title One; Sucker's Paradise; Ooh Taste So Good; Misguided Heart; Eight Hands One Mind; Dancing Rosetta.

Personnel

Album information

Title: Eight Hands One Mind | Year Released: 2021 | Record Label: Unseen Rain Records

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.

More

The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante
All In Motion
Dave Redmond
Cat & The Hounds
Colin Hancock's Jazz Hounds Featuring Catherine...

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.