Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Francisco Pais Quintet: Not Afraid Of Color

137

Francisco Pais Quintet: Not Afraid Of Color

Francisco Pais Quintet: Not Afraid Of Color
Guitarist Francisco Pais was born in Lisbon, Portugal and graduated cum laude from Boston's Berklee School of Music after having studied with Pat Metheny, Peter Bernstein, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Mulgrew Miller, Mark Turner and Branford Marsalis. Following his gradution in 2002, he spent years touring through festivals and venues of Europe, as well as performing with American musicians.

Pais' debut presents nine compositons with his group of five years, featuring Chris Cheek (saxophones), Leo Genovese (piano, Fender Rhodes), Massimo Biolcati (bass) and Ference Nemeth (drums). Pais seems to have composed this music to combine jazz fusion and the more contemporary swirls of electronic coloration which undoubtedly give this album its title.

This swirling sound emerges on the opening track, "Water from the Moon," with Genovese's work on the Fender Rhodes sounding like the fusion keyboardists of the '70s and '80s. As I commented in my review of Mike Tucker's 2006 recording Collage, Genovese's use of electronica and acoustic piano reveals how superior the acoustic portion sounds.

Much to my surprise, Pais is a fine soloist in a most mainstream manner. If you were compare his style to Pat Metheny's, it would have to be the clean articulation and rounded notes of the latter's earliest days for ECM in the late '70s. Relative to Pais' other guitar influences (per his studies at Berklee, e.g. Kurt Rosenwinkel and Peter Bernstein), he clearly manifests the mainstream Bernstein more than the quirkier Rosenwinkel.

Is it my imagination, or do we get to hear Pais playing more during the second half of this album? Out of the sometimes swampy melody lines often comes a cleanly played guitar passage and solo. Pais provides guitar fills for Chris Cheek's soprano sax on "Lift Your Head From the Sand and Face Reality" and then they do a clever reversal on the following track, "Desert of Colors," where Cheek does the same for Pais' guitar lines. Creek previously supplied a sturdy melody statement on "Gratitude."

In a nutshell, I'm having difficulty matching the skill and talent of a new guitarist with his preferred mode of writing and sub-genre.

Track Listing

Water From the Moon; Gratitude; Tides; Always Dreaming; Melody for Damien; Transfiguration; Lift your Head From the Sand and Face Reality; Desert Of Colors; Charmed;

Personnel

Francisco Pais: guitar; Chris Cheek: saxophones; Ferenc Nemeth: drums; Leo Genovese:piano, Fender Rhodes; Massimo Biolcati: bass.

Album information

Title: Not Afraid Of Color | Year Released: 2006 | Record Label: Fresh Sound New Talent

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

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

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.