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This fascinating and pleasant reissue of 1974 presents Charles Rouse, a long-time saxophonist with the latest thelonious monk quartet, applying her urban musical intelligence with funky rhythms that then dominated R&B and African-American pop. Modal harmonies are also in the mixture, just like Afro-futurism and the trace elements of free jazz. For five sumptuous slopes, Rouse weaves its winding lines, its moving riffs and its light of the feathers is supported in a network of funky bass lines, pointed backbeats and light core chatter.
The set opens with Rouse Spinning Melodies Beguiling on the relaxed summer groove of “Bitchin '” and continues with the urgent pulse of “Hopscotch”, the first of the three tracks supported by bassist Stanley Clarke. “In a Funky Way” strikes the rhythmic spot and Clarke returns for the widest “Two is one” with its complex temporal signature, its cello harmonies and its insistent bass line. Rouse goes to the bass clarinet for the theme of meditation “in His presence Searching”, written by drummer David Lee, and the last piece of the album.
Bassist Clarke and percussionist Airto Moreira are well known, and Lee, whose Sideman's concerts included Dizzy Gillespie and Roy Ayers, worked with Sonny Rollins at the time. Otherwise, the grooves, licking and solos manufactured by experts are by relative unknowns. The cellist Calo Scott is a strong presence throughout and George Davis, one of the two guitarists, wrote two tracks.
Rouse left Monk in 1970 and was trying to distance himself from the heritage of the pianist and take his own way. The Strata-East label belonging to a musician, founded in 1971, was a perfect match. The label gave a complete artistic control, including the choice of the studio and the sound engineer, to the musicians he recorded and, for almost a decade, captured the modernism of New York jazz, absorbing revolutionary African-American music of the previous decade. Long underground presence, the recordings of strata-east remain a fundamental influence on the spiritual jazz of today.
This joyful and always edifying music is now released on Vinyl and CD via Mack Avenue. The series recently launched with digital compilation only recommended at 33 tracks Strata-east: The inheritance begins.
★★★★ ☆
'Two is one' is published by Strata-East
