Track of the Year So Far
From Out Late a new all-star quintet album from pianist Eric Scott Reed – trumpet duties are undertaken by the great New Orleanian Nicholas Payton, the tenor spot filled by fine narative saxophonist Eric Alexander and there’s bassist Peter Washington and the spang-a-lang loving drummer Joe Farnsworth completing the line-up.
Regular readers will know that the Charlap Trio bassist Washington’s spots on a number of records have been popping up regularly on marlbank given they reward a lot of frequent replay – the new ornithologically themed tribute from Jim Snidero – Bird Feathers – intoxicatingly for one, springs to mind.
There’s a double pun in the album title ”Out Late” as the album is a celebration of late night city life and also a nod to the fact that Reed came out as bi in recent years.
‘Glow’ is a mid tempo swinger, the melody established by tenor and trumpet with players then jockeying to take the first solo as Farnsworth keeps things loose behind.
It’s a rhythm section record AND a horn player’s record at once given the skilled conversational approach and cross rhythms.
Yes there’s a bit of retro-ness about it. But all hard bop – which this is, but not the rampaging kind – is retro so the guys are playing a style. Feelgood averse? Fuhgeddaboudit. Read the memo.
Reed was on peak form on the same issuing label’s Black, Brown and Blue. And clearly the purple patch continues not just on this track. But also given the quality of the other consistently immaculate tracks.
We rehearsed a song for a few minutes, and once everybody got the melody under their fingers, we went ahead and made a track while it was fresh. The energy is there; the rawness is there. Coleman Hawkins said, ‘If you’re not making any mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough’ – Eric Scott Reed
It’s a good time to be into the Inside Straight Family sound given what Carl Allen did on Tippin’ Pottering about and an album of the month in these pages earlier in the year, the Allen key handy for the all round unflatpacking administered by Christian McBride spanking the bottom lines so formidably on Metheny and Mays’ hitherto far more ethereal classic, ‘James’. And there’s a steady stream of new albums in the idiom.
Reed, now using his middle name as well, says: “It’s about finally being able to embrace myself – my whole totality, my whole personage, who I am, who I love, why I do what I do, and how it’s all intertwined.”
The Philly born pianist, 54, played piano in his father’s church in his teens. By that time the family had moved to LA. Encouraged by Wynton Marsalis he became part of Wynton’s septet in the wake of Marcus Roberts.
The album was recorded in vintage fashion, with the whole band together in one room – no headphones, no overdubbing.
Smoke Sessions
Reed is on the classic late-1990s Wynton Live at the Village Vanguard.
The pianist is also know for his work with Inside Straight, bass don Christian McBride’s band that also featured the aforementioned Allen. Both are on the brilliant Kind of Brown (Mack Avenue, 2009)
As for this Out Late track our track of the year (so far!) it’s a first take, the label notes.
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