Artist: Trevor Watts

Date of Release: 01/10/2005

Catalogue no: HF HCD004

Label: Hi4HeadRecs

Price: £12

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Track Listing

Reviews

01/03/2006 Abe Pollack All About Jazz

British reedman Trevor Watts’ World Sonic takes a different approach to free improvisation. Alto sax solos are built on the concept that improvisation stems from repetition; Like a Jumanji construction, each phrase in a song is only slightly different from the last. As Watts repeats a phrase, he is able to find the underlying tones, rhythms and melodies buried within. He subtly peels away all that is superfluous
and reveals what his creative mind has found in an otherwise basic motif.
However avant these respective albums come off, they demonstrate the most primitive and storied tradition in jazz: the artist, while performing solo, is on full display to the audience. Every thought and every emotion comes through the horn in the kind of clarity and meditation that only the great masters can pull off.
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01/03/2006 Bill Shemakee - Point of Departure Webzine

The old adage, "better late than never", certainly applies to WORLD SONIC, Watts' thoroughly engaging 2005 colection of alto saxophone solos. Watts' concept of solo music is closer to that of Steve Lacy, in that the solos are a different manifestation of concepts being refined on an ongoing basis, as opposed to articulating a seperate body of procedures and materials the way Anthony Braxton did in his early solo music. In using the non - Western rhythms, scales and structures that are the bulwarks of his ensemble music, Watts also sidesteps the pitfalls of generic free inprovisation. Without the layers of percussion and the entwining bass guitar lines, Watts has the space to explore circular breath - propelled repetition, and to shape his themes by rushing a phrase or letting a rest linger, and he repeatedly exploits these opportunities. Subsequently, there is a more slow burn, meditative intensity to this set. For the purposes of examining the constituent parts of Watts' approach, the set is invaluable.