The Brodie West Quintet: Meadow Of Dreams

It may or may not be because of a recent series of programmes about Impressionist art on British television, combined with a passing knowledge of intoxicants, but for some reason the album title Meadow Of Dreams suggests one of Claude Monet's paintings of a field of poppies.

As it happens, Monet's poppy paintings are a good fit for Toronto-based alto saxophonist Brodie West's sophomore album with his acoustic quintet. The music is beautiful, sunny, uncorrupted—and a million miles from any association with Monet's near contemporary, the poet Charles Baudelaire's altogether darker Flowers Of Evil.

The sound and vibe may surprise European listeners, for West is best known here for around a decade of work with the Dutch anarcho-punk-meets-free-jazz band The Ex, in particular on the group's albums featuring guest artist Ethiopian tenor saxophonist Getatchew Mekurya, a ferocious player whose shellela style, a precursor of American skronk, could make Albert Ayler sound buttoned up. (Anyone unfamiliar with Mekurya's early 1970s' Ethiojazz should seek out the Ethiopiques label's album Negus Of Ethiopian Sax, released in 2004).

There are occasional moments of near-skronk abandon on Meadow Of Dreams, but for the most part the music is lyrical, well-tempered and delicate, like a Monet but avoiding any suggestion of chocolate-box packaging through the album's undercurrents of unpredictability and angularity. Motor rhythms permeate the music, but drummer Nick Fraser favours subtlety over simple iterated grooves. West's gently edgy melodicism is mirrored by Tania Gill's piano and Evan Cartwright's vibraphone and guitar. A lovely and restorative album which bears repeated listening.

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