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