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Sean Jones: No Need for Words
ByNo Need for Words is a tantalizing paradigm. This very vocal music obviates the need for verbiage that would otherwise describe the experience contained in the songs, no matter the urge for lyrical narratives and lofty sermons. No matter that conventional wisdom might suggest some poetryeven in the vocabularies of musicmay be necessary to enable melodies to rise above the prosaic. For instance, a title like "Look and See" might seem to be a call to follow a pointed finger, but not in Jones' book. Here is actually a call to share in a visionary perception that pierces the disappearing horizon as Jones and alto saxophonist Brian Hogans, together with pianist Orrin Evans, ruffle the melodic and harmonic road that leads to a wholly new set of vistas where drummer Obed Calvaire redraws the vanishing points of the song with pomp and circumstance. The emotional windup of the album is reached in the taut tessellations of "Obsession (Cloud Nine)."
Along the way, there is plenty of emotion of another kind: the gorgeous, elegiac beauty in the diaphanous beauty of "Momma," especially in the wailing high note that Jones repeats as if to emphasize the depth of his love; and in the edginess and elasticity of "Touch and Go," which stutters and swings around the rattle and swishing of Calvaire's skins and shimmering cymbals before settling down into a tantalizing walking and skipping pace. The gleaming, bronzed beauty of the almost statuesque grace of "No Need for Words" seems almost too much to bear for the trumpeter, as the music is squeezed out of embouchure and bell. The music here seems virtually static at first, only to spin gently around bass and drums. At times breathtaking, No Need for Words is an album of exceeding beauty.
Track Listing
Look and See; Olive Juice; Momma; Touch and Go; No Need for Words; Obsession (Cloud Nine); Love's Fury; Forgiveness (Release).
Personnel
Sean Jones
trumpetSean Jones: trumpet; Brian Hogans: alto saxophone, strings (7); Orrin Evans: piano, keyboards (7); Obed Calvaire: drums; Luques Curtis: bass; Khalil Kwame Bell: percussion (2, 7, 8); Corey Henry: organ (8); Matt Stevens: guitar (7).
Album information
Title: No Need for Words | Year Released: 2011 | Record Label: Mack Avenue Records
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