KEN VANDERMARK — Strade d'Acqua / Roads of Water (review)

KEN VANDERMARK — Strade d'Acqua / Roads of Water album cover Album · 2011 · Jazz Related Soundtracks Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
Ricochet
Knowing him so fervent and prodigal (probably more than any among us), I find Vandermark to be surprisingly tempered on this album. None of the other new releases (the new Resonance tenure, Reed Trio) would showcase something strikingly offbeat - and since this was recorded back in 2008, there's even more bitter music it stands apart from (the volumes with Nilssen-Love, Lean Left, Sonore etc.) - but Strade d'Acqua, his very first OST, is indeed of a different vibe and eloquence, in mild, rustic or (in comes the obvious pun) sticking to the script ways.

The Predella Group features Jeb Bishop, Tim Daisy or Fred Lonberg-Holm, to name but the familiar faces from Vandermark's entourage. The jazz is - I must be using this word for the third time already - surprisingly traditional, almost composition-based, not quite under old free-form beliefs, but more about essences, with drops of sounds and sequences. Group coordination has here a totally different meaning: voices that are doubled, parallelisms, one instrument taking on another, strings of dialogues.

There is an often cardinal ambiance, developing much later: tribal tinges with fine, crawling dissonances ("Further") or straightforward experimental sounds and noises ("Signals"); clean harmonics and brass moaning on a single brake drum beat ("Sieve of the Soul"); superimposing light, mysterious tones, dozingly hummed by the bass, grainly fretted at the chimes, pensively whistled at the clarinet ("Austral Cartography").

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Jazz Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

JMA TOP 5 Jazz ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
A Love Supreme Post Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners
Kind of Blue Cool Jazz
MILES DAVIS
Buy this album from our partners
The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady Progressive Big Band
CHARLES MINGUS
Buy this album from our partners
Blue Train Hard Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners
My Favorite Things Hard Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners

New Jazz Artists

New Jazz Releases

About (or On)First Visit Avant-Garde Jazz
ELLERY ESKELIN
Buy this album from MMA partners
To Walk On Eggshells Avant-Garde Jazz
RUSS JOHNSON
Buy this album from MMA partners
Snakeoil : Snakeoil Ok Avant-Garde Jazz
TIM BERNE
Buy this album from MMA partners
Poetry of Place (from the exhibit by painter Karen Allen) Jazz Related Improv/Composition
CHRIS DINGMAN
Buy this album from MMA partners
Hiwar World Fusion
ALEPH QUINTET
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Jazz Online Videos

Satoko Fujii Tokyo Trio Dream a Dream
SATOKO FUJII
js· 1 day ago
Wojciech Jachna Squad - Ad Astra (Promo Teaser)
WOJCIECH JACHNA
snobb· 5 days ago
Nitty Gritty
RUSS SPIEGEL
js· 5 days ago
Never in a 100.000.000 Dreams
SUPERSISTER
js· 5 days ago
Love is a Fire that Burns Unseen
PETER MADSEN
js· 6 days ago
More videos

New JMA Jazz Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Jazz News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed