Mokave
Afriqúe

Glen Moore is known to most as the bassist of Oregon, but he is above all a curious and hard-to-classify musician, constantly searching for new sounds to extract from his significant instrument. I won’t hide that I bought this CD (released in 1994) attracted by his name on the cover and curious about what our musician would do outside his natural context.

Well, I discovered a lively and original ensemble, an equal trio composed, besides the mentioned Moore, of the versatile pianist Larry Karush and the renowned percussionist Glen Velez.

To tell the truth, the three had long intertwined their artistic paths, as Moore and Velez had played together in Paul Winter's Consort, a hotspot and crossroads of contamination among jazz, classical music, and ethnic influences.

As for Larry Karush, perhaps the least known of the three, he is actually a very versatile figure in music: moving between jazz and contemporary, he has collected an impressive number of collaborations with musicians of very diverse backgrounds, ranging from John Abercrombie to Steve Reich, just to name a few. An artist attentive to the reality around him, he fostered the birth of Oregon by hosting the quartet in his loft and providing them with his recording studio in the distant 1970.

"Afriqué", therefore, and thus African sounds, percussive, ancestral. Of course, but not only...

The opening "Sun Bone" will bring a smile to your face: a nervous and sprightly little gem from Moore's unpredictable pen. Here, as elsewhere in the album, Karush displays a dry and percussive pianism, sometimes reminiscent of a vibraphone or marimba. But he is also capable of pressing the emotional pedal, as in John Abercrombie's classic "Parable", where a cluster of chords is just an excuse to weave harmonic digressions of disarming beauty.

Velez's talking drums are always prominently featured; in the longer and more articulated tracks, a small court of percussionists is invoked, filling the air with exotic sounds: here's "Africa 3/2", with its lazy and dreamy rhythm, transporting us aboard a barge on those African rivers that flow slowly, vast and majestic, among yellowish waters and hippos. Three white men talking about Africa, and they succeed, without seeming obvious or rhetorical. Listen to believe.

In the tracks with a stronger ethnic imprint, Abdullah Ibrahim's shadow distinctly stands out, but throughout the album, the three undertake different and varied paths: there's room for more traditionally understood jazz, with "Gloria's Step", in which Moore pays homage to his declared master Scott La Faro - and a pillar of modern jazz, whom every respectable bassist must confront. There are more experimental moments, where Moore, interfacing the bass with a sophisticated electronic system, brings out an arsenal of lunar and unsettling sounds, freely unleashing his unusual creativity. All seasoned with his customary, sinister sense of humor, as the title "Mr. Moore's Neighbourhood" (Mr. Moore's neighbors) attests.

As already mentioned, Karush as a soloist is always interesting, and the composer also holds his ground. The concluding "Country" well illustrates the aesthetic of the versatile pianist: Karush starts from a well-defined structure, an essentially Jarrett-like theme, to introduce an oblique improvisational language, bordering on dissonance, which the earliest Ornette Coleman would have appreciated...

A different point of view: on jazz, on music tout court, on the way of being and considering oneself musicians. A recommended, as well as a delightful, mental exercise.