DON RENDELL — Phase III (as Don Rendell-Ian Carr Quintet) (review)

DON RENDELL — Phase III (as Don Rendell-Ian Carr Quintet) album cover Album · 1968 · Post Bop Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
Sean Trane
Third album, but a very different beast from the awesome Dusk Fire, probably partly because there were two years between the recording sessions, but also that the fairly collegial composing of DF has all but waned, as Ian Carr takes on the lion’s share. Normally in the light of the future Nucleus group, this could be excellent news, but the reality is somewhat not as evident as that conclusion would be. Well some of the music present some crazy time signature, and Carr’s passion for writing with letters as well as notes, shows up in some tracks (Antan, is from a XVth Century poem)

One thing that strikes immediately is the breakneck speeds of some of these tracks (notably the opening Crazy Jane and its follow-up On!), as if the musicians were trying to outdo each other, but forgot being at the service of the competition. Indeed if I had the vinyl spinning, I’d probably check to see if it is not spinning at 45 rpm. However, things get somewhat back on track with the Carr-penned Neiges d’Antan, which mixes some classical influences, even if the piece’s slow section around the end is needlessly long. After the short and expandable ballad of Bath Sheba, the album gets into its other centrepiece, the Garrick-penned Blacl Marigolds (brought from outside the Quintet), a superb modal jazz piece that can be assimilated to an Indian raga, where Garrick and the boys soar with an intense determination that could only impress Impulse!’s “New Thing” wave. Too bad these two lengthier pieces are drowned in a pond of less advanced shorter pieces.

If anything, Phase III seems to be step backwards from Dusk Fire, one that returns to the standard jazz, although I wouldn’t make the shortcut by implying that it just that! But P3 is definitely late one battle in the jazz-progress war (despite its two excellent lengthy avant-pieces), where its predecessor was probably ahead of the pack. Nevertheless, the present album is certainly the Quintet’s second-best album (well disputable with the Live), and one that can safely invested in, despite the BGO label linking it with their ”Live” album in a 2on2 reissue set.
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