Recorded in Paris, Joel Forrester's latest recording offers a new perspective on his music.
From the review in The New York City Jazz Record, Sept. 2011:
"The results are equivocal, neither truly a jazz take on prog rock nor a prog rock-inspired jazz album, yet the tension between the patron’s wishes and leader’s jazz inclinations yield some fresh and surprising music nonetheless. “Second Nature”, done by the full quintet with piano-electric bass-drums joined by electric guitarist Manu Codjia (fully conversant in jazz-rock vocabulary) and baritone saxophonist Alex Hamlin (whose legato style and vibrato suggest an amped-up piccolo bass) features a patterned rhythm and stairclimbing melody redolent of King Crimson. On other tracks, Forrester employs such prog rock tropes as mixed time signatures and classical allusions like minuet (“Skirmish”) and pointillism (“Who Ever Knew”) and even includes a suite-like track suggesting etudes featuring a different instrument in each section (“Vortex”). Forrester sticks to acoustic piano and the tracks closest to the swing he professes to eschew are the trio tracks, or trio sections of others by the quintet. And repeated listening will reveal a whimsy and wit in the conception that might elude a first go-around."
Updating...
