Cat Toren’s Human Kind: Scintillating Beauty

Besides piano, leader and composer Cat Toren brings chimes, tuning forks, singing bowls, rattles and bells into the mix with his team of saxist Xavier Del Castillo, Yoshie Fruchter on the oud, bassist Jake Leckie and drummer Matt Honor for a handful of originals that create exotic and intuitive sounds. Stephanie Rooker adds extra chimes, tuning forks and singing bowls to the 16 minute  “Radieance In Veils” that has a lovely yet loose cadence with warm tenor sax and lots of jingles and jangles. The 10 minute “Rising Phoenix” features an eerie keyboard for askance meditations and a ruminating tenor over the Crescent moon of an oud. A Mingusy “Ignis Fatuus” mixes bopping blue notes with a lurking pulse, and “Garment of Destiny” takes you to a Moroccan souk with elliptical soprano sax musings. Enchanted evenings.

www.newfocusrecordings.com

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