2-disc set.
Just mentioning the members of the Herb Robertson NY Allstars makes you want to hear this new double album. The project is, as you might guess from the name, under the leadership of the trumpeter known for using the mutes as complementary instruments and megaphones as electronic processors: Herb Robertson. His sidemen — Tim Berne, Sylvie Courvoisier, Mark Dresser and Tom Rainey — are among the best in the New York avant jazz scene. Add a title like “Real Aberration” and the cover mage of a little dog showing his bizarre teeth, and you are bound to be intrigued. Recorded live in Porto, Portugal, in the beautiful and monumental Casa da Música, only one thing is expected: the music unexpected. And certainly it’s not an aberration, unless you’re a jazz purist who condemns liberties taken with mainstream norms. his music can boil in intensity and turn on a dime to dreamy-like atmospheres. It can morph to chamber jazz (listen to the magnificent bow work by bassist extraordinaire Dresser) or to the most radical fire music.” It can be slow or frenzied, cerebral or visceral, through solo interludes and collective interactions, complex structures and free-flowing improvisations. You couldn’t wish for more from any two discs.
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