Search - Art Blakey :: Child's Dance 1

Or 2 five-star albums when properly sequenced! aka...

Royster | the East | 02/26/2003

(3 out of 5 stars)

"How sometimes the whole academic approach to reissuing music just completely undermines the whole listening experience...The cd comprised of materials used for Child's Dance and two tracks from Anthenagin as well as the unissued track Kaku Aka. When listened as a whole it becomes quite a schizophrenic experience, as if the Messengers both moving forward towards spiritual jazz yet reverting back to the hard bop approach towards the end of the cd.However, treat tracks 1-4 and 5-7 as separate entities, then you'd be rewarded. The first four tracks are groovaliciously deep and atmospheric, they see Blakey expanding the band's vocabulary, venturing towards the more spiritual jazz on Impulse!, Strata East and Flying Dutchman than JM's trademark full-on swinging. In particular, the smouldering intensity of the unissued track, Kaku Aka, with its percussion and Fender Rhodes washes, reminds one of early Return to Forever (must be the Stanley Clarke factor) cuts. These tracks would have made one hypnotic cd by themselves, if you are looking for the archetypal JM would definately be disappointed but listen with a open mind you'll be rewarded with depth and subtlety that JM rarely exhibits.Those looking for an updated version of what JM had been doing since the 50s, skip the first four tracks and head to track 5, there you'll find plenty of fire esp. from Blakey himself and the great Woody Shaw.While both sides are equally good when taken separately, having them together made one or the other seems out of place, diminishing their respective powers.One last thing, for those at Fantasy and Prestige, please use the original cover artwork for your reissues, unless you hire someone with the talent of Pat Roques at Blue Note. The "new" designs on some reissues are so naff that it isn't funny!"