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JD Parran & Mark Deutsch: Omegathorp: Living City
The first 35-minute half of Omegathorp combines a four-part score by Parran with a poem written by the late saxophonist and free jazz legend Glenn Spearman. The performance is dominated by vocalist Thomas Buckner, who reads in a Ginsbergian style and sings in an operatic baritone that gives the work an Amiri Baraka-meets-Stephen Sondheim quality. Darling's cello sets the musical pace and establishes the mood, while Kubera and Deutsch provide Western and Eastern accents above Norton's spacious drumming and Parran's reedy jazz inflections.
Spoken word recordings can be risky. What may work in a live setting as a singular experience doesn't always translate to the isolated solitude of sitting at home in front of your speakers or behind the wheel, or walking around the house or around town wearing earbuds. For the slightly more conventional listener, the second half of this CD offers Deutsch's long, organically conceived and smartly executed composition "Kwama Okura (succeeding on a heavy Alice Coltrane/Yo-Yo Ma vibe), as well as an electronically-enhanced group improvisation (including vocals from Darling) that shows what these musicians can do on their own Silk Road journey.
Track Listing
Omegathorp: Living City Suite: Explore Coming Forth; Breath Textures; Done Chanting Forests; Done Woman; Kwama Okura; Improvisation.
Personnel
JD Parran
saxophoneJD Parran: alto clarinet, soprano saxophone, bamboo flute, Eb contrabass clarinet; Mark Deutsch: bazantar, sitar; David Darling: cello, electronics, electro-vocals; Kevin Norton: percussion; Joseph Kubera: piano; Thomas Buckner: voice.
Album information
Title: Omegathorp: Living City | Year Released: 2007 | Record Label: Y'All of New York, Inc.
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