Table of contents
Meeting of minds
While ‘United’ you will know from any number of versions perhaps (Art Blakey, Woody Shaw, Medeski, Martin & Wood, Ray Barretto or Vic Juris who did a great version on Eye Contact issued the year before he died) you won’t hear it like it is here, winding and explorative, taking all the time in the world.
With guitarist Lionel Loueke’s vocals to the fore, his remarkable guitar playing communicative and dynamic, a definite mission of intent in the mood that he and In a Silent Way bass great Dave Holland conjure, tunes everywhere else are by the Benin great Loueke who is a writer of supreme tenderness and sensitivity. Not breaking news either.
Composer of modern classic ‘Benny’s Tune’ tugs the heartstrings again and injects pace and passion
Long time fans will know that factor from ‘Benny’s Tune’ for instance an earlier career highlight in this long time Herbie Hancock band member’s Terence Blanchard band period.
It’s a very mellow album but isn’t at all pabulum for the masses. In other words it isn’t smooth, twee or throw away. More a keeper, United doesn’t go for easy open goals. Neither does it patronise the listener by being obscure or caught up in its own muso-for-muso bubble.
You get sucked into Loueke’s world and there is such fine detail in the harmonies.
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Another door of perception opens
And when he starts doing vocalese against the guitar lines as on ‘Pure Thought’ it’s like another door of perception opening.
Holland knows about intimacy in his playing better than most as well as being able to burn like an eternal candle.
And these feelings persist throughout whether one or the other takes the lead. The real joy is the collective endeavour rather than a feast of individual posturings.
The album wouldn’t be compete without a monster Holland riff and you get that best of all set against clicking and panting on ‘Tranxit.’
Intersections to sounds from all over the world
I started thinking of Holland’s flamenco album Hands with Pepe Habichuela released about 15 years ago given the same duo meeting of minds created albeit in a different idiom and operating on another level.
That was an outlier more than this but nevertheless the two can be listened to together.
Holland the one time I interviewed him told me about when he was a young player before going to live in America he was really into what people would later and don’t so much now call world music buying records featuring sounds from all over the world. And in both Hands and United with their radically different core ingredients from on the one hand Spain and the other Africa that interest has certainly stayed with Holland.
Loueke I met interviewing him in a hotel near Regent’s Park circa Heritage in 2012 and last heard him live playing with Herbie Hancock and Blanchard at the Barbican in the summer of 2022.
A track like Heritage‘s ‘Farafina’ is worth going back to given that you also realise how well established Loueke’s sound is and how he can come over very differently on his own projects. Loueke in the trio Gilfema worked a lot with Massimo Biolcati and Holland and that fine Italian player share a lot of vocabulary in common.
J. For Jazz. For Joy
The only other thing to do I think here is to follow up by checking out Holland and Loueke on Aziza. It’s not as if what’s on United is a microscopic version of it at all. But listen to the beat displacement on Loueke’s ‘Sleepless Night’ which has a heavier rock feel to it more like something you’d hear on an Ali Farka Touré album but allows you an insight a little into some of his thinking. So when you enter this new album, with the gnawa soaked flavours of ‘Essaouira’ at the beginning, it’s an insight.
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