Terence Blanchard: "Flow"

[CJ Shearn]

JazzKat, I'm referring to the term used when by the jazz press when cats like Terence, Wynton, Branford, Carl Allen, then later Christian McBride, Hargrove, Nicolas Payton, Josh Redman came onto the scene in the early- mid '80's and 90's. Though early on in their careers they were part of the so called "neobop" movement in which largely the jumping off point for their music was Miles mid 60's quintet, their conceptions have expanded over the years. Wasn't the "young lions" tag used to describe players like Wynton Kelly, PC, and Lee Morgan in the late fifties, early sixties?

Edited June 24, 2005 by CJ Shearn

[JohnJ]

Nice review in todays Guardian, Fordham gives 4 stars.

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Terence Blanchard, Flow

(Blue Note)

John Fordham

Friday June 24, 2005

The Guardian

If Herbie Hancock thinks something is worth doing, plenty of other musicians soon follow suit. When Hancock was in Britain recently with the quartet that included West African singer and guitarist Lionel Loueke, the result - electronics-assisted world music meets flat-out jazz improv - came as a big surprise to many who had been expecting something closer to the African- American tradition.

Now here's another very American virtuoso, the one-time Jazz Messengers' trumpeter Terence Blanchard, who boasts Hancock as his producer and occasional pianist on this eclectic set, while Lionel Loueke is enlisted as composer. The upshot is a multi-layered composite of post-bop, Joe Zawinul, abstract worldbeat and Miles Davis circa the In a Silent Way era.

Blanchard has made some fine albums over the past decade - from tributes to Billie Holiday to improvisations on movie themes, via standards sets that marked him out as one of the great interpreters of slow ballads of his generation. He is also a more sensitive user of synths than many of his peers, who carelessly throw such devices into the mix; and he is a trumpeter with the elegance and tone of the late Clifford Brown.

On first listen Flow sounds very familiar, beginning as it does with a repetitive trumpet theme over minimal percussion. Loueke's liquid guitar is close behind. It's the kind of self-sufficient trumpet exposition, full of slurred valve sounds, effortless register leaps, billowing long notes and rhythmic manipulations, that Blanchard's fellow New Orleans citizen Wynton Marsalis has marked out as his own.

Then come three Loueke pieces, all spacious chanting and ambient flute-like sounds, over which a romantic horn melody turns into a wistful soprano sax solo from Brice Winston. The Miles Davis of the ESP/Sorcerer era is recalled by Blanchard's sparkling playing on Wandering Wonder, while Loueke's balancing of untreated guitar and electronics is the highlight of the second part of the title track.

Kendrick Scott's The Source is a swaying but insubstantial tune, enlivened by Winston's hollow tenor sax and Hancock's sporadically provocative piano. Meanwhile the vocals on the haunting, gospelly ballad Over There function as an atmospheric prelude to Blanchard's exquisitely measured trumpet solo. While Flow is maybe a little glossy and over-produced for some, it is none the less exceptionally elegant contemporary music.

[ghost of miles]

JazzKat, I'm referring to the term used when by the jazz press when cats like Terence, Wynton, Branford, Carl Allen,  then later Christian McBride, Hargrove, Nicolas Payton, Josh Redman came  onto the scene in the early- mid '80's and 90's.    Though early on in their careers they were part of the so called "neobop" movement in which largely the jumping off point for their music was Miles mid 60's quintet, their conceptions have expanded over the years.  Wasn't the  "young lions" tag  used to describe players like Wynton Kelly, PC, and Lee Morgan in the late fifties, early sixties?

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There was a Vee-Jay album released under that name.

[CJ Shearn]

thanks GoM!