I'm sitting on back patio, pleasantly buzzed. Dark clouds are crawling over the mountain. Lighting and thunder announcing the imminent rain. I love an early spring thunderstorm. But there is something special when the music connects with the atmosphere and every thing just sounds...special.
This evening was one of those and these records were the soundtrack. Tonight I offer up both of the India Navigation lps in their unabridged form.
What is so freaking cool about these lps is the way that 3 younger musicians, all coming from different places in the idiom were able to lure an old master out of retirement.There are far to many highlights but a couple are so good it would be criminal to leave them unmentioned. For me, Murray's original solo piece is as cool as anything ever performed on bass clarinet. The Hamilton/Batiste duet on Honeysuckle Rose is a classic mentor - student outing, where everything comes full circle, brilliantly.
Vol two approaches being a Duke tribute and yet you can almost feel the joy in the performers as everything falls so completely together swinging the the tunes they all grew up on. And just when you think you may have had enough... they reprise splendidly a near perfect improvisational piece.
The clarinet is such a damn cool instrument that is so overlooked it's crazy. I'm thinking a might declare this the "Summer of Clarinet" and focus on posting great clarinet stuff for the next few months.*
Clarinet Summit - VolumeI
1.Band Intro
2. Groovin' High
3. The Jeep's Blues
4. Sweet Lovely
5. Sticks and Bones
6. Honeysuckle Rose
7. The Washington Square Park Episode
8. Clarifavors
Clarinet Summit - VolumeII
1. Mood Indigo
2. Night Mist Blue
3. Waltz A Minute
4. Creole Love Call
5. Solo and Ballad for Four Clarinets
6. Satin Doll
7. Clarifavors
Alvin Batiste - clarinet
John Carter - clarinet
Jimmy Hamilton - clarinet
David Murray - bass clarinet
IN-1062
IN-1067
* sure..... I will.
