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Seeds From The Underground

Kenny Garrett

Seeds From The Underground

Price: € 17.95
Format: CD
Label: Mack Avenue
UPC: 0673203106321
Catnr: MAC 1063
Release date: 01 March 2012
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1 CD
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€ 17.95
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Label
Mack Avenue
UPC
0673203106321
Catalogue number
MAC 1063
Release date
01 March 2012
Album
Artist(s)
Composer(s)
EN
DE

About the album

For Garrett, 'Seeds from the Underground' is a special recording. It consists solely of original compositions, and is truly a homage to those who have inspired and influenced him, both personally and musically. "All of these songs are dedicated to someone," says Garrett. "And the 'seeds' have been planted, directly or indirectly, by people who have been instrumental in my development." Among them are Jackie McLean, Roy Haynes, Marcus Belgrave, Keith Jarrett and Christian Laviso.
Wir gratulieren dem Künstler zum Echo 2013 in der Kategorie Instrumentalist des Jahres international Saxophon/Woodwinds.
Wenn man sich wie Kenny Garrett seit vielen Jahren auf dem Höhepunkt der Karierre aufhält - was auch im Jazz nur wenigen mit solch einer Konstanz gelingt - kann man durchaus auf diese Frage stoßen: Wo und wann wurde der Samen gelegt zu den vielen genialen Einfällen, Innovationen, Ausdrucksmöglichkeiten? Auf seinem neuen Album hat Garrett vielen dieser "Samenspender" Hommagen in Form von neuen Stücken gewidmet. Von Roy Haynes über Marcus Belgrave bis Keith Jarrett. Entstanden ist ein Beleg für die Tatsache, dass er einer der großartigsten lebenden Saxophonisten ist - und bleibt.

Artist(s)

Kenny Garrett (saxophone)

With his illustrious career that includes hallmark stints with Miles Davis, Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers, Donald Byrd, Freddie Hubbard, Woody Shaw and the Duke Ellington Orchestra, as well as a heralded career as a solo artist that began more than 30 years ago, Kenny Garrett is easily recognized as one of modern jazz’s brightest and most influential living masters. And with the marvelous Sounds From The Ancestors, the GRAMMY® Award-winning Garrett shows no signs of resting on his laurels. Kenny Garrett’s latest release, Sounds From The Ancestors, is a multi-faceted album. The music, however, doesn’t lodge inside the tight confines of the jazz idiom, which is not surprising considering the alto saxophonist and composer acknowledges the likes of Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye as significant...
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With his illustrious career that includes hallmark stints with Miles Davis, Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers, Donald Byrd, Freddie Hubbard, Woody Shaw and the Duke Ellington Orchestra, as well as a heralded career as a solo artist that began more than 30 years ago, Kenny Garrett is easily recognized as one of modern jazz’s brightest and most influential living masters. And with the marvelous Sounds From The Ancestors, the GRAMMY® Award-winning Garrett shows no signs of resting on his laurels.

Kenny Garrett’s latest release, Sounds From The Ancestors, is a multi-faceted album. The music, however, doesn’t lodge inside the tight confines of the jazz idiom, which is not surprising considering the alto saxophonist and composer acknowledges the likes of Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye as significant touchstones. Similar to how Miles Davis’ seminal LP, On the Corner, subverted its main guiding lights – James Brown, Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone – then crafted its own unique, polyrhythmic, groove-laden, improv-heavy universe, Sounds From The Ancestors occupies its own space with intellectual clarity, sonic ingenuity and emotional heft.

“The concept initially was about trying to get some of the musical sounds that I remembered as a kid growing up – sounds that lift your spirit from people like John Coltrane, ‘A Love Supreme’; Aretha Franklin, ‘Amazing Grace’; Marvin Gaye, ‘What’s Going On’; and the spiritual side of the church,” Garrett explains. “When I started to think about them, I realized it was the spirit from my ancestors.” Indeed, Sounds From The Ancestors reflects the rich jazz, R&B, and gospel history of his hometown of Detroit. More important though, it also reverberates with a modern cosmopolitan vibrancy – notably the inclusion of music coming out of France, Cuba, Nigeria and Guadeloupe.

“It’s Time to Come Home,” a sauntering yet evocative Afro-Cuban modern jazz original, kicks off the album. Garrett’s melodic passages, marked by capricious turns and pecking accents, signals a “call to action” for kids around the world to come home after playing outside all day. This incarnation reflects his experiences playing with iconic Cuban pianist and composer Chucho Valdés. Garrett then pays tribute to the late, great trumpeter and composer Roy Hargrove with the dynamic “Hargrove,” a bracing original that evokes the namesake’s mastery of reconciling hard-bop’s intricate harmonic and interactive verve with late-20th century hypnotic R&B grooves and hip-hop bounce. The song also references John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, which accentuates both the earthy and spiritual nature of Hargrove’s music and Garrett’s saxophone virtuosity.

Traces of the Black American church also surge through “When the Days Were Different,” a warm mid-tempo original. “The idea was to take it back to the church,” Garrett explains. “It reminds me of being at a gathering with family and friends having a good time eating, drinking and spending quality time together.”

On the rhythmically intrepid “For Art’s Sake,” Garrett pays homage to two legendary drummers – Art Blakey and Tony Allen. Bruner concocts a stuttering rhythm that alludes to both modern jazz and Nigerian Afrobeat, while Bird adds polyrhythmic fire with his circular conga patterns.

Drums and percussion are again highlighted vividly on the swift “What Was That?” and “Soldiers of the Fields/Soldats des Champs.” The former finds Garrett in quintessential form as he navigates through a thicket of torrential polyrhythms and a jolting harmonic bed with the steely determination and dexterity associated with Coltrane and Jackie McLean. The latter is a magnificent two-part masterpiece that integrates martial beats, Guadeloupean rhythms and a haunting cyclical motif on which Garrett crafts pirouetting improvisations that dazzle with their initial lithe grace and increasing urgent wails. Garrett explains that “Soldiers of the Fields/Soldats des Champs” is a tribute to the legion of jazz musicians who fought to keep the music alive. “They’re the first ones to get hit and shot at in the line of fire on the fields of justice. ‘Soldats des Champs’ is also a tribute to the Haitian soldiers who fought against the French during the Haitian Revolution.”

The leader’s love for Afro-Cuban jazz returns on the dramatic title track, which begins with Garrett playing a slow melancholy melody on the piano before the music gives way to a soul-stirring excursion, filled with passionate vocal cries from Trible and moving Yoruban lyrics from Pedrito, paying respect to Orunmila, the deity of wisdom. “It’s about remembering the spirit of the sounds of our ancestors – the sounds from their church services, the prayers they recited, the songs they sang in the fields, the African drums they played and the Yoruban chants,” Garrett says. The album closes as it opens with “It’s Time to Come Home,” this time Garrett uses his saxophone as a rhythmic instrument to have a conversation with the percussionist without the vocal accompaniment.


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