Tim Rapp

Barry Deister Quintet: Crows - The Portland Images Project

by Jack Bowers
May 1, 2021

Crows, a new recording by saxophonist Barry Deister's quintet, embodies a series of tone poems designed to depict in musical terms various features of the area in and around Portland, Oregon--a locale that Deister and his colleagues call home--as part of the Portland Images Project. Their themes range from ephemeral ("Winter Wind," “Fog," “Cascade Sunrise") to material ("Yellow Flower," “The Falls," “Crows") with one ("Burnside Blues") depicting a street that traverses the length of the city and theoretically splits it ...