September 23, 2007

JAZZARIUM: Reviews of Arturo Stable's 'Notes on Canvas' and Ryan Cohan's 'One Sky'

Ryan Cohan One Sky Motema Music The heart of this album is a suite of tone poems: "Into Being Parts I and II," "Wonder & Response," "Awe," and "Hope." Cohan is a superb composer and arranger, and a wonderfully bold, confident punch and jabber of a pianist, but with a quiet side that relishes the vulnerable ballad and the impressionistic riff. He is joined by a fabulous ensemble: Bob Sheppard on saxes and flute, Geof Bradfield on saxes and bass clarinet, Tito Carrillo on trumpet and flugelhorn, James Cammack and Lorin Cohen on bass, Kobie Watkins on drums, Ruben Alvarez on shekere, and Jean-Christophe Leroy on congas.

The suite is sweet--expansive, quirky, and spinny in a childlike way. I especially enjoyed Wonder & Response, which has the lovely ambling feel of a quiet walk in fields near enough to be comfortable and far enough to keep the ambler alert to the everyday natural marvels he's been missing.

The sly "Double Agent" couples Sheppard's breathy burbling flute inspirations with Cohan's cool chordal maneuverings and scalar scampers. "Easy for You to Say" is an articulate musing on inarticulateness that will be instantly recognizable to any wooer who's tripped over his tongue or, in its introductory feel, to any pianist who's worshipped Bud Powell. "Six Fortunes" is given a cool mystery by Cohan's pedaled pensees, Leroy's creeping congas, and a horn chart that never quite tonally resolves. "Checkmate" jogs through its urbane paces like the score to a sophisticated cop thriller. And "Lush Life," the only cover here, is delivered with a salute to Strayhorn and a reverence for Ravel.

Call me superficial, but my only quibble with this fine album is that someone--I'm presuming it's Cohan--has a bad case of hum-itis. Sometimes that's so integral to a musician's melodic momentum that there's nothing one can do. But it is distracting--at its worst, like having Ray Romano doing a little unplanned backup vocal--so if Cohan can strip it from his studio work especially, he should.-Alexander C. Kafka