Search - Avram K. Fefer :: CALLING ALL SPIRITS

PhD exams

greg taylor | Portland, Oregon United States | 07/15/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is Avram Fefer's first session as a leader. It serves as a rite of passage that is typical of what makes creative improv music so wonderful and strange. Read the bio above. School years in the Boston area, five years in Paris and, at the time of this recording, another four years in New York. This is a fairly typical apprenticeship for this type of music. This is also why there are so many people in this type of music who have truely mastered their instruments. The truth is that it simply takes time and much effort to get this good.
He is joined on this CD by his working band at the time- Eric Revis on the bass and Igal Foni on the drums.
But this is really Fefer's CD. He penned four of the tunes with the others being covers of standards by Charles Mingus (everything Mingus wrote should be considered a standard), Ornette Coleman (Mothers of the Veil), and Don Cherry (Guinea). Fefer's is the dominant voice in all the tunes and he carries it off beautifully. Part of his strength comes from his tone which it different times reminds me of Joe Henderson, Clifford Jordan or even John Gilmore. His playing has the same quality the Jordan has of singing a melody so soulfully that it stays in your mind's ear for days.
That last sentence gets to his next strength. Fefer largely eschews extended technique on this CD in favor of simply playing the heck out of melodic variations. He is confident in his ability to come up with something new and interesting at every moment and he largely succeeds.
Finally there is another aspect of his aesthetic that is worth remarking on. He is calling out to the spirits of the sax trio tradition on this CD, that is obvious. He is staking his claim in the lineage of Rollins, Henderson, Lovano, Garazone, Eskelin and a few others who have made great art from within the trio format. But he obviously wants his music to be accessible to the audience. Challenging, expansive, yes but also something that people can groove on.
This CD was released in 2000. Since then he has released three others, the most recent being Shades Of The Muse on the CIMP label. Go to his web site for sound bites of all his recordings and for more info on the man.
As for me, my fellow Amazonians, it comes down to this- the only real competition for this debut comes from a Geoff Bradfield CD, Rule of Three, that I recently reviewed. I can only hope that more of you take a chance on these two youngish(within the jazz context) players and support their music. This is strong music with the promise of only getting better."