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Jemeel Moondoc Trio: Fire In The Valley
ByCook and Voigt bustle back and forth between volcanic eruptions and quieter dispersions, and Moondoc’s sound is similarly varied between raw, raucous honks and elongated, emotionally charged lines. Cook works his cymbals and snare like pinball flippers continually buffeting a gleaming percussive ball into innumerable rhythmic nooks and crannies and racking up copious points along the way. Voigt’s method is more manic as he juggles bow and fingers in a continuous rough caress of his strings. His solo near the ten-minute mark makes the fingers ache just thinking about the tensile strength required to pluck such incessantly demanding patterns. For his part Moondoc dances a woolly jig atop the variegated rhythmic verdure liberally adding splashes of his own melodic paint to the collective canvas. At one point saxophone and stringently sawed bass meet in an acrimonious embrace upended by Moondoc’s vocal cries. At another a viscous bass pulse oozes beneath Moondoc’s sprightly upper-register musings and Cook offers terse stick-driven commentary in response. This is a trio so multifaceted in their approach that the possibility of boredom is summarily abolished as soon they raise their instruments. Doubt the veracity of such a claim? Just take a listen. The clamorous ninety-second encore is the proverbial maraschino on top.
Those souls fortunate enough to witness this concert came away with an earful. Thanks to the diligent efforts of Eremite the day lives on and can be marveled at by an audience of global proportions. Here’s hoping that ever widening numbers of these world citizens acquire an awareness of the pearls awaiting them in the translucent depths of this music and decide to take the plunge.
Tracks:Fire In the Valley/ Encore.
Players:Jemeel Moondoc- alto saxophone; Laurence Cook- percussion; John Voigt- bass.
Recorded: July 27, 1996, Amherst, MA.
Eremite on the web: http://www.eremite.com
Personnel
Album information
Title: Fire In The Valley | Year Released: 2000 | Record Label: Eremite Records