Dogmental

Dogmental

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Andy Biskin has created fascinating work on this debut CD, mixing and matching elements from a century of American music. His sound palette on 11 tracks is the traditional frontline of New Orleans jazz, aligning his own clarinet with Ron Horton's trumpet and Bruce Eidem's trombone and a rhythm section of Ben Allison on bass and Matt Wilson on drums. But his forms--including waltz and polka--come from elsewhere and anywhere. The emphasis is very much on Biskin's writing, with pieces composed over an eight-year period. He mixes melodic echoes of klezmer, cool-school harmonies, and a polyphonic style that can suggest Charles Mingus writing chamber music or the program music of Raymond Scott.

It's all done with a sly, puckish wit, a sense of displacement that transforms the sometimes banal sources with an original sensibility, akin to Charles Ives or Carla Bley. The same compellingly light touch extends to the performances, with each player making his own imprint in a music that somehow balances sentiment and burlesque. Biskin's fluid clarinet can suggest Dave Tarras or Jimmy Giuffre. Horton can make a pointed, hard-bop attack seem the ideal complement, while Allison and Wilson add detailed commentary to their strong foundation. Eidem, like Biskin, is a master of nuance, with every timbral gesture in the trombone vocabulary coming into play, from the sweetest, roundest tone to mocking bray. The closeness of their partnership is further evidenced by four tracks from an earlier Biskin quartet recorded in 1996. --Stuart Broomer

Dogmental,Andy Biskin Quintet,G.M. Recordings,Jazz,Jazz Music,Pop,Post-Bop

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