Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » John Butcher: The Geometry of Sentiment

359

John Butcher: The Geometry of Sentiment

By

View read count
No task seems too mighty or unattainable for consummate improviser, saxophonist John Butcher. On this venture, the artist embarks upon a solo flight captured at various European and Japanese locations, spanning museums and music venues. Performing on tenor and soprano saxophones, he employs amplified/feedback on two cuts, where he shines as a polytonal sound machine of sorts.

It's a study in contrasts, where Butcher morphs minimalism with heated phrasings to convey a myriad of emotively-charged parables. On the opener titled "First Zizoku, which is a piece recorded at a Japanese museum, he uses the echo-chamber sonic attributes to his advantage via zigzagging exclamations and oscillating trills. Here and on other works, the saxophonist sports an angular gait, teeming with popping notes and split-tones. He generates a sequence of neural sparks that present notions of a jittery and somewhat volatile state of affairs while also rendering steely-edged and mind-bending phrasings.

Butcher sustains interest throughout by intimating the implications of the album moniker via a cavalcade of disparate angles. During the piece dedicated to the late, great guitar improviser Derek Bailey, "But More So (for Derek Bailey), he exploits the tonal capacity of his sax with creaky-toned notes. Yet it's all a testament to Butcher's ingenuity and scope, which surfaces throughout the entire realm of this all-encompassing and, at times, mystifying foray.

Track Listing

First Zizoku; Second Zizoku; A Short Time To Sing; But More So (for Derek Bailey); Action Theory Blues; Soft Logic; Tr

Personnel

John Butcher
saxophone

John Butcher: tenor or soprano saxophone; amplified / feedback (3, 6).

Album information

Title: The Geometry Of Sentiment | Year Released: 2007 | Record Label: Emanem


About John Butcher

Tags


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Become a Sustaining Member

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter

Since 1995, All About Jazz has championed jazz as an art form and supported the musicians who create it. Over three decades, it has grown into one of the world's leading jazz resources, serving hundreds of thousands of readers, musicians, presenters and industry professionals each month.

Help Build the Future of All About Jazz

Your support helps us continue building All About Jazz for the next generation—expanding our editorial coverage, preserving jazz history, developing new community features and creating better ways to discover the music and the people behind it.

Become a sustaining member for as little as $20 per year and you'll immediately enjoy an ad-free experience along with access to subscriber features and future articles for a full year.

Together, we're not simply sustaining All About Jazz—we're building its future. Thank you for being part of the journey.

More

Airborn
Eddie Parker's Airborn With Rob Luft
Slow Down For Turtles
Luca Benedetti
Relocate
Andres Thor
A Distant Land
Rich Halley 4

Popular

Desolation Row
David Maranha / Rodrigo Amado
2014 NYC
King Crimson
Beneath Lifted Skies
Linda May Han Oh & Melissa Aldana
Talamanti
Patricia Brennan and Sylvie Courvoisier

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletters highlight our top stories, top album reviews, website news, free songs, radio & podcast shows, news, 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.