Artist: Edward Simon

Date of Release: 01/01/2005

Catalogue no: KOKO 1305

Label: Kokopelli Records

Price: £14

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Track Listing

This New York times "Top Ten Jazz Recordings of the Year" features superb playing by some of the best player on New York's Jazz scene. Many of the virtues that were later to reveal themselves on latter discs are already fully present on this outing: a deep folkloric sensibility; a lightly worn virtuosity, always in service to a group concept; a very attractive, dancing, lilting approach to his instrument, very much in a Villa-Lobos vein; an uncanny ability to choose entirely apt playing partners--and to lead them authoritatively yet democratically; and the ability to compose attractive compositions in a wide variety of styles.

The band, reading like a who's who of younger musicians, including a twenty-something Mark Turner on tenor sax turning in perhaps his finest playing on disc, Edward Simon on piano, Larry Grenadier on bass, Adam Cruz on drums, and old guy Milton Cardona on percussion, cooks up a storm. Easily able to shift effortlessly between ballads, burners, and mid-tempo mood pieces, this band exhibits a protean flexibility found only among the top practitioners, proving once again the wealth of musicianship among younger jazzers. Anyone interested in the roots of the Nu Latin jazz will certainly want to check out this glorious but rather neglected disc.

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