Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Uri Caine/Bedrock: Shelf-Life

412

Uri Caine/Bedrock: Shelf-Life

By

Sign in to view read count
Uri Caine/Bedrock: Shelf-Life
If Uri Caine's first Bedrock album was a warning shot across the bow, Shelf-Life is an outright broadside. The keyboard player's 2001 trio record with drummer Zach Danziger and bassist Tim Lefebvre blended electric jazz with contemporary and neo-retro styles, heading adventurously into a no man's land of beats, jams, and freaky madness. This followup (a hefty seventy minutes' worth) is even more mixed up, aided in no small part by a guest list ten players long.

Depending on your personal tastes and breadth of exposure, the rapid and regular shifts in mood, style, and era on Shelf-Life may be energizing or disconcerting—probably a combination of the two. As for me, it all adds up to pure joy, in no small part due to the music's unpredictability. Caine, Danziger, and Lefebvre are not so reckless as to ever lose control, so individual tracks may wander a bit, but they never get lost. And that's absolutely key. Tightness is a virtue.

"Wolfowitz in Sheep's Clothing" digs into a stop-start funk groove driven by bass and drums and punctuated by wispy threads of trumpet (Ralph Alessi), electronically processed sounds, and keyboard vamps. Neither the rhythm nor the melody dwells in the realm of cliche, and none of it stays in one place for long. Compare the group's sound to the similarly configured Medeski, Martin and Wood, for example, and the difference is night and day: MMW is a jam band by formula; Bedrock is an alliance of three creative musicians who just so happen to hover in this particular zone for a few minutes before taking off elsewhere.

Regular retro trips look backward for inspiration. "Blakey" digs into '70s disco motifs (complete with heavy backbeat, trippy riffs, primitive-sounding keyboard tones, and congas), but layers of continuously evolving texture buoy it far above potential ruts. A similar track called "Sweat," one of two that feature vocals, closes out the album. "Strom's Theremin" sounds uncannily like a decades-old shuffle jam, and the spaceman effects on the monophonic keyboard leads refer directly to the era of synthesis (aka the dawn of the synthesizer).

Luke Vibert, who's probably most familiar to followers of electronic music by his Plug or Wagonchrist aliases, produces and programs three tracks. But they're not all minimalistic exercises in stacked beats, like Plug's late-'90s experiments, but fully fleshed out club bump-and-grinders.

Perhaps the most revealing thing about Shelf-Life is the fact that all the tracks fall in a radio-friendly two to six-minute range, never overstaying their welcome. All the self-conscious movement is going to keep most of this material off the airwaves—except for college stations—but the spirit of the music is true to the title. By extracting hipness from dinosaurs past and present, Bedrock's method ensures that this music will never grow old.

Visit Uri Caine on the web.

Track Listing

SteakJacket Prelude; SteakJacket; Defenestration; Wolfowitz in Sheep's Clothing; Blakey; On The Shelf; Darker Bionic Cue; Strom's Theremin; Oder; Murray; bE lOOse; Watch Out!; Bauwelklogge (dedicated to Mel Lang); Shish Kabab Franklin; Interruptus; Hello; Sweat.

Personnel

Uri Caine
piano

Uri Caine: keyboards; Zach Danziger: drums, percussion; Tim Lefebvre: bass, guitar. Special Guests Ralph Alessi: trumpet (4,9); Bootsie Barnes: saxophone (10,16,17); Ruben Gutierrez: clarinet (10); nnnj: reconstruction worker (7,11); DJ Olive: electronic (15,16); Bunny Sigler: vocals (17); Arto Tuncboyaciyan: percussion (1,5,6,8); Luke Vibert: production, programming (6,13,17); Barbara Walker: vocals (11,17); Dan Zank: string programming (17).

Album information

Title: Shelf-Life | Year Released: 2005 | Record Label: Winter & Winter

Comments

Tags


For the Love of 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 create 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.

You Can Help
To expand our coverage even further and develop new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for a modest $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination will vastly improve 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

Fiesta at Caroga
Afro-Caribbean Jazz Collective
Fellowship
David Gibson
Immense Blue
Olie Brice / Rachel Musson / Mark Sanders

Popular

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.