Intuitive sounds from 577 Records…
Jorma Tapio plays a variety of flutes, saxes and the kantele while teamed with bassist Ville Rauhala and drummer/percussionist Janne Tuomi, who throws in an occasional kantele as well for these Tapio originals. Tapio’s Coltranesque tenor gets shrill on the bluesy and loose “Way Off” with the alto moaning to the stop starting bopper “Lasten Juhlat”. Tuomi’s brush adds a bop feel to Tapio’s flute on “She’s Back” while the team gets tribal on the clarion “Reppurin Laulu”. The kantele is brought in for the dark pulsations of the title piece, while the team sounds like Oliver Nelson’s “Stolen Moments” on the lithe “Nukunuku” with wondrously bowed bass. Free yet easy.
Daniel Carter/sax-cl-tp, Patrick Holmes/cl, Matthew Putman/key-p, Hilliard Greene/b and Federico Ughi/dr create a handful of flowing moods and impressionistic sounds. Pastoral ripples abound with bowed bass and Carter’s rich alto on “Nun Zero” with long tone from the reeds trudging through Ughi’s cymbals on “SignGhost Theatre”. The reeds likewise buildup together to create a palpable tension on “S-Cape Cinematic” with a sustained suspense created with high pitches on “Lore Levels”. Hitchcockian atmospheres.
Trumpeter Roy Campbell left us in 2014, but he leaves us a recording from 1999 with Daniel Carter/as-ts-tp-fl, Sabir Mateen/as-ts-fl-cl, Matthew Heyner/b and Tom Bruno/dr from a concert in Harlem NYC. There’s only one song, a 47 minute free blowing improvisation filled with swirling saxes, growling brass, honking altos with some screeches in the altissimo register that can make your hair stand on end. The drums and bass cluster and scramble around like a traffic jam in a roundabout, with Heyner picking and attacking his bass like a punching bag. Anyone get the license number of the truck?