Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Joe McPhee: Sonic Elements

3

Joe McPhee: Sonic Elements

By

View read count
Joe McPhee: Sonic Elements
Ernest Hemingway might have said it best: "All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." For musician Joe McPhee, delivering that one true sentence has been his motivation since the 1960s.

An in-demand improviser, he can be heard in multiple settings including the bands of Peter Brötzmann and Ken Vandermark, as a guest of the Deep Listening Band, Trespass Trio and Decoy, and with the rock band, Cato Salsa Experience. He maintains his longstanding association with Dominic Duval and Jay Rosen in Trio X, and can also be heard in an Albert Ayler tribute band. His duo recordings find him with the likes of Evan Parker, Joe Giardullo, Daunik Lazro and Michael Bisio but is, perhaps, best heard with drummers Paal Nilssen-Love and Hamid Drake.

The question may be whether he wrote that "one true sentence" in a Swiss farmhouse in 1976. The out-of-print solo recording, Tenor (Hat Hut, 1977), and its subsequent reissue, Tenor & Fallen Angels (Hatology, 2000), is a stunning session that has been referenced by many a musician (and journalist) as a life-changing listening experience.

McPhee has since recorded a half dozen solo sessions, including this live date (although the audience is never heard) from the 2012 Slovenian Ljubljana Jazz Festival. Setting his tenor saxophone aside, he plays two lengthy pieces: first, a tribute to Don Cherry on a pocket trumpet; then an alto saxophone salute to Ornette Coleman. Neither piece is imitative, nor are they peppered with covers of the two great men. McPhee choses, instead, to delve into the meditative and sonic outposts of the two chosen instruments.

"Episode One (for Don Cherry)" begins beyond the trumpet, in silence. Then comes the breathy blown non-note, a combination of vocalizations and air. McPhee invents his horn, or maybe reinvents music here. From the purity of first sounds comes tentative notes, trills and splats. He whispers and summons a tale of memory here. Same for his take on Coleman and "Episode Two." A bit of a saxophone workout, McPhee exercises a trip around honking corners before dropping some blues: a sort-of melancholy hymn. The performance is more a storytelling then musical experience; maybe McPhee's one true sentence.

Track Listing

Episode One (for Don Cherry): Wind, Water; Episode Two (for Ornette Coleman): Earth/Fire, Old Eyes.

Personnel

Joe McPhee
woodwinds

Joe McPhee: pocket trumpet, alto saxophone.

Album information

Title: Sonic Elements | Year Released: 2013 | Record Label: Clean Feed Records

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.