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| Release: 2008
Style: free jazz / fusion
Label: www.moonjune.com
Website:
Contact:
Playing Time: 59:27
Cat. N°: 00000
Review by: Vadim
Translated by: Misha
Rating: 8/10
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English:
Everything that happens has a time when it happens for the first time. Recently I’ve got acquainted with work of an extraordinary jazzman Alex Maguire, thanks to the label Moonjune, that issued the life album "Brewed in Belgium" of Alex Maguire Sextet.
Here is a short info about Maguire. He learned music from John Cage and Howard Riley, went to Barry Jazz Summer School, and then recorded and played a lot live shows in East and West Europe, with such stars like Evan Parker, Elton Dean, Roswell Rudd, Pip Pyle, Richard Sinclair, Phil Miller and others. He worked in various theatre companies, took part in various musical projects. During last years he joined Psychic Warrior, together with Elton Dean (ex-Soft Machine). Recently he toured together with Hatfield and The North in both Americas and Japan.
With all his work he proves that his music doesn’t have boundaries. Whether he plays fusion, progressive jazz or avant-garde, you will always hear how limitless his musical language is.
On this album he joins forces with the saxophone player Robin Verheyen and another 4 of 5 musicians from young and very interesting Belgian group The Wrong Object. Their album "Stories from the Shed" was also issued on Moonjune and was discussed on Rockadvice as well. On this brew you can hear all the musicians not just playing modern jazz, but breaking the common boundaries and going free-jazz, avant-garde or other even difficult to define directions.
The album opener is a long and elegant piano piece, written by Maguire - "Psychic Warrior". It tunes you to a lyrical and relaxed mood. But the next composition "John's Fragment" which came from Maguire’s play "Moorsong" would wake anybody up. A simple theme during the intro, overflowing into a mighty saxophone solo by Robin Verheyen, joined later by Jean-Paul Estievenart on trumpet.
The 15-minute long "Saturn" is the most powerful song on this album. The name and the sphere created by this number reminds me of the music of Sun Ra. However stylistically it’s closer to Soft Machine from the Elton Dean period. Hypnotizing bass riff, beautiful guitar solo of Michel Delville plus duo saxophone + trumpet make 15 minutes go by unnoticed.
A short Delville's theme "Theresa's Dress", which comes from "Stories from the Shed", is lengthen here to almost 10 minutes. A little dull, melancholic and too much free jazz. The next one is Maguire’s "Pumpkin Soup", were piano and saxophone improvisations overflow to each other leisurely.
The closing composition is a very strong Elton Dean’s "Seven for Lee", a traditional jazz-rock with fine trumpet and saxophone solo’s.
As a whole, the album is not simply mixture of jazz and rock, but it contains also other, difficult to define stylistical elements.
The best songs are "John's Fragment", "Saturn" and "Seven for Lee".
Score is 8 from 10, and may be it’s just because it’s not really my dig.
Tracklist:
1. Psychic Warrior
2. John's Fragment
3. Saturn
4. Theresa's Dress
5. Pumpkin Soup
6. Seven Fro Lee
| Musicians:
Alex Maguire- acoustic piano, synth
Michel Delville- synth guitar
Robin Verheyen- tenor & soprano sax
Jean-Paul Estievenart- trumpet, flugelhorn
Damien Polard- bass guitar
Laurent Delchambre- drums
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