Download - Downbeat

Fareed Haque + The
Flat Earth Ensemble
Flat Planet
OWL STUDIOS 00133
AAA 1 /2
Chicago-based guitarist Fareed
Haque is a chameleon, working in
a variety of settings from nylonstring
classical concerts to groovy
funk-oriented bands. In many
contexts, a penchant for the flamboyance
of flamenco and Gypsy
music comes through in his playing,
without any Djangoid tendencies.
With a mixed heritage, half-
Chilean and half-Pakistani, Haque
has spent ample time enjoying
and infusing himself with the popular
and classical musics of the Indian subcontinent.
The Flat Earth Ensemble concentrates
these influences, using South Asian percussion
as a basis for improvisations steeped in jazz,
sometimes adding a soul twist.
Of course, a guitarist playing with Indian elements
is apt to draw comparisons with John
McLaughlin’s Shakti, and for those deeper into
the progenitors of world music, the earlier example
of Indo-jazz-fusion violinist John Mayer.
Haque’s project doesn’t sound like either. In
places, such as “The Four Corners Suite,” the
most jazz-fusion of everything on Flat Planet,
the synthetic progressivism, jagged portent and
limber virtuosity of Shakti are evident. But
there’s also a playful sense of openness to newer
musics from South Asia, which are based in folk
and classical musics—the bubbling bottom on
the percussion intensive “The Chant,” for
instance.
“Big Bhangra” sports sweet soul-jazz guitar
over a jazz-trap/tabla rhythm team that’s smooth
and confluent. On more stripped-down tracks,
like “Bengali Bud,” which pits Haque’s distorted,
blues-tinted electric guitar against Indrajit
Banerjee’s sitar and Subrata Bhattacharya’s
tabla, some of the deeper affinities and contrasts
to emerge. Here, the classical Indian improvising
and jazz meet in a modal showdown.
An overdubbed duet with percussionist
Ganesh Kumar (“32 Taxis”) is even more successful
in this regard, with flamenco chords and
combustible rhythms rolled together in an
unforced way. Some post-M-Base harmonic
complexity is worked out on “Blu Hindoo” and
“Fur Peace,” both spotlighting the nimble fingers
of the leader. To these ears, these are not as
interesting as the tracks with their feet dancing
more ecstatically on both sides of the planet.
—John Corbett
Flat Planet: Big Bhangra; The Chant; Uneven Mantra; Blu
Hindoo; Bengali Bud; Fur Peace; The Hangar; 32 Taxis; The Four
Corners Suite—North, South, West. (75:38)
Personnel: Fareed Haque, guitars; Indrajit Banerjee, sitar;
Ganesh Kumar, kanjira; Kala Ramnath, Hindustani violin; Elihu
Haque, djembe, voice; David Hartsman, saxophones, flute; Rob
Clearfield, Willerm Delisfort, keyboards, piano; Alex Austin, Jon
Paul, bass; Cory Healey, Jason Smart, drums; Subrata
Bhattacharya, Jim Feist, Salar Nader, tabla; Kalyan Pathak, dhol,
sticked percussion.
»
Ordering info: owlstudios.com
Sean Jones
The Search Within
MACK AVENUE 1044
AAA
Working with a core group of five players, two
of them saxophonists, trumpeter Sean Jones
flexes more than sufficient muscle to conjure the
illusion of a big band on this compact package
of mainstream modernism. Yet, when the heat
and tempo are dialed down, his playing assumes
a placid serenity so soft and mellow you’d think
you were hearing a flugelhorn (which he does
play on “Life Cycles”). On this, his fifth CD for
Mack Avenue, Jones focuses on a dozen proficient
but rather uneventful originals that display
his range as a player without providing much in
the way of stimulating context.
Why it seemed like a good idea to spread the
title tune, “The Search Within,” out in three
fragmentary installments eludes me. The CD
begins in a tranquil and vibrato-less reflection
against what appears to be mock strings for
sweetening. Fine. But after about a minute it
fades away, as if to say “never mind.” We rejoin
it for another couple of minutes on cut seven,
fading in and then out again as it gathers lift.
Finally, we come back to it at the end as it
comes to closure. It’s silly and gives the piece, if
not the CD, a kind of Dean Benedetti feel, the
John Scofield
Piety Street
EMARCY/DECCA B0012656
AAA
John Scofield hit on a pithy career statement
when he titled his previous Decca disc This
Meets That. Deep artistic breadth has led the
guitarist from the graceful trio romps of Bar
Talk to the fractured funk of A Go Go to the
psych-prov excursions of Überjam. He not only
brakes for monster booty (as one 2002 song title
declared), he brakes for any and all doorways
that lead to intriguing groove music.
So the gospel tunes of Piety Street seem a
natural part of Scofield’s contoured playing
field. Working his well refined jack-of-all-trades
role (whether it’s Charles Mingus or Medeski
Martin & Wood, he knows how to get a new
lingo down quick) he glides into N’awlins
mode, connecting with keybster Jon Cleary and
bassist George Porter, Jr. for some prayer meeting
pyrotechnics. The Crescent City has long
been part of his parlance. No wonder, then, that
Team Sco brings a loose-limbed feel to these
spirituals.
From “His Eye Is On The Sparrow” to “Just
A Little While To Stay Here,” the guitarist is in
a plaintive mode, making his notes sob their
way through the changes. The outro solo in the
latter may be the most evocative of the entire
disc. Its trajectory is a great reminder that
Scofield’s keen dynamics enable him to inject
cranky licks into consonant volleys, not only
making the entire statement meatier, but delivering
the unexpected as a matter of course. Piety
Street is chock with vocals (Cleary and John
Boutté both take to the mic), but Sco’s stinging
sermons, dancing between verses, are most commanding.
Indeed, this approach somewhat mars the
58 DOWNBEAT June 2009