Rich Perry - Organique

Styles: Saxophone Jazz
Year: 2015
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 56:46
Size: 130,2 MB
Art: Front

( 9:59)  1. Toys
( 9:05)  2. I Didn’t Know What Time It Was
(10:04)  3. Afternoon In Paris
( 9:16)  4. Without a Song
(10:03)  5. Thad’s Pad
( 8:16)  6. Dance Of The Infidels

Tenorist Rich Perry holds an established track record of subverting expectations and embodying contradictions. He is reportedly a reluctant band leader in the studio, yet Organique registers as his twenty-second album for Steeplechase. Curiously, it’s his first fronting an organ trio, although he worked previously with Gary Versace on the organist’s debut for the Danish label over a decade ago. On that outing, guitarist John Abercrombie served as an additional harmonic foil and soloist. Here it’s just Versace and drummer Jeff Hirshfield supplying support and the lean format while quietly and consistently challenging yields a surprisingly sedate set of performances in sum. Count on Perry to zig and he’s more likely to zag.

As with the majority of his previous dates, Perry falls back on a program of standards and covers, but his distinctive bop-based phrasing stubbornly resists predictability. Versace fills a multi-purpose role very similar to the one he fielded as a member of saxophonist Ellery Eskelin’s New York Organ Trio around the same time, generating slippery leads, responsive comping and resonant, rippling bass lines with equal expertise. He bathes it all in a warm, enveloping tonal gloss that works as an instant relaxing agent on the ears and in the service a phraseology that repeatedly evades B-3 cliché.

A drowsy and melodious investigation of Herbie Hancock’s seminal “Toys” finds Perry and Versace plying the vertical spiraling theme and sandwiching a pair of searching solos in-between before a somewhat matter-of-fact finish.  “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was” follows an analogous path of least resistance with Perry blowing wistfully across plush, pulsing comping from the organist. The saxophonist’s lines resolve unexpectedly, once again mirroring a mind intent on making the familiar delightfully peculiar. As if to heighten contrast, Hirshfield traffics in skeletal, cymbal-driven time-keeping, taking care not to get in the way or shade outside the lines.

“Afternoon in Paris” and a Latin-tinged “Without a Song” spool out with comparable degrees of poise and measured poignancy, but once again the prevailing mood is even-tempered. Verace adds some off-kilter pedal effects to the front and back ends of the former and generates a voluminous, highly propulsive bass line on the latter. Perry fashions agile solo extemporizations on both, making the most of the upper registers of his horn. Hirshfield is still largely relegated to deferential tempo management and accents for better and worse, leaving the highwire work to his colleagues.

“Thad’s Pad” brings the blues, with a switch to brushes and another tumescent bass presence by Versace that snakes lasciviously around the organist’s lithe right hand variations. A vivacious, if somewhat viscous rendering of Bud Powell’s “Dance of the Infidels” clinches the set with more ambrosial interplay between tenor and Hammond B-3. Packed with plentiful slow smolder passages rather than outright brush fires, the disc holds much to recommend it as Perry’s first (and overdue) foray helming an organ outfit. ~ Derek Taylor http://dustedmagazine.tumblr.com/post/125774960201/rich-perry-organique-steeplechase

Musicians:  Rich Perry – Tenor Saxophone;  Gary Versace – Hammond B-3 Organ;  Jeff Hisrshfiled – Drums

Organique

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