Jazz Magazine - March 2003 - Disque d'Emoi
A magnificent sound clothes this recording. An atmosphere, which one becomes immediately convinced is dressed like a phantom spaceship , so that one no longer has to leave: The Gathering in so many brilliant voicings on which float a tenor with the counterpoint of cymbals; and the tone is given! Obviously, the band knows itself and remembers who they are (nine years have yet passed since “A Band in All Hope” on Bridge Boy), from which there is a certain clarity in the collective expression. An immortal ballad of Duke (Prelude to a Kiss) cements a pure connivance of accents, equally of an account of strong emotions. Above all Denner—flirting with Getz, Rollin, Ernie Watts—holding then his notes long in the mouth, to better kiss them. A them of Wayne Shorter, definitvely stamped a la Davis, and—there’s the music, cajoled, that yurns around the melody (baritone sax), gorges itself on emotion, breathes, plants itself in three open hands so it can more effectively flower. And the play, always the play, of influence and of sharing, cascades of clear notes (soprano—piano) on a stream of toms that roll with pleasure. They even close with a sea chanty, a breath of fresh air (literally, fresh air freeing up days of foam/scum). After an electric episode, the whimsical Carrothers rebounds with a jazz that doesn’t look for its impact in the direction of volume, but rather in its depth, its fragrance. In the end, it’s about the joining of thick sonorities. An elegant and opulent example of the perfume of jazz.
Jazzman Magazine - 4 stars
It's been several years since Bill Carrothers, with saxophonist Anton Denner and drummer Bill Stewart, formed a trio with which he recorded (and released on Bridge Boy Music) under the name of "A Band in All Hope". They recorded compositions inspired by the Inferno of Dante. It's with this group that he is reunited to present to us his "ghost ships" (indefinable specters which come back three times over the course of the disc in the form of indistinct sounds)and their evasive universe, haunted by bewitching legends, of superstitions of buccaneers and chants of sirens, that are not far from those evoked in "Speak no Evil" by Wayne Shorter (to which the trio takes again "Water Babies", troubling girls of water--as there is in it others [other legends?]of fire.) An artist of obscure hues and nuances perfectly captured by the recording, the pianist pursues his exploration of a vaguely unsettling world, unstable and always a bit strange. If Bill Stewart, with his subdued cymbals and broken rhythms, seems an ideal partner, one can be on the other hand taken aback by the sonority of Anton Denner, even if this one contributes, with his acidity, to the sepulcral atmosphere of the music. |