Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Tim Berne's Snakeoil: The Fantastic Mrs. 10
Tim Berne's Snakeoil: The Fantastic Mrs. 10
A new addition to Snakeoil, the guitar of Ducret joins Berne's cast of pianist Matt Mitchell, clarinetist Oscar Noriega and percussionist Ches Smith. Like Bloodcount, it is difficult to imagine any other musicians playing this music. Berne's distinctive compositions are at the same time heretically free and structurally regimented. His logic, which flows from his early years as understudy with Julius Hemphill, is elaborate yet straightforward.
The bass-less quintet maintains time in an unstated fashion, with each musician free to comment within Berne's structures. The pace of "Surface Noise" with its quiet piano and glockenspiel opening, courses stream-like into eddies and an eventual whirlpool of sound with the addition of the other musicians. The track flows into a quieter alluvial plain of scratchy guitar effects and a Noriega clarinet whale-song before the shock and awe ending. Berne's distinctive compositions are idiosyncratic without being pretentious. The one cover, "Dear Friend" by Julius Hemphill, is a beautiful ballad with gentle horns, ringing notes and scurrying of mice feet (not really) over guitar strings. Where other jazz composers are playing checkers, Berne is playing chess.
Track Listing
Fantastic Mrs.10; Surface Noise; Rolo; Dear Friend; The Amazing Mr. 7; Third Option; Rose Colored Assive.
Personnel
Tim Berne
saxophone, alto
Matt Mitchell
piano
Oscar Noriega
clarinet
Marc Ducret
guitar
Ches Smith
drumsAlbum information
Title: The Fantastic Mrs. 10 | Year Released: 2020 | Record Label: Intakt Records
About Tim Berne
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