Search - Denis Charles :: Captain of the Deep

Memories move the air

Pharoah S. Wail | Inner Space | 12/07/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"With the package saying this was recorded on 5/9/91 but the Eremite website listing it as 1/1/91, I can't say for sure when this was recorded. What I can say is that on whatever date in history this went down, Jemeel Moondoc (alto), Nathan Breedlove (trumpet) Wilbert DeJoode (bass) and Denis Charles (drums) gave us a loving, swinging, beautiful keeper.



If you're coming from a 40-something-year-old notion that "Free-Jazz" or "Avant Garde" is uniformly synonomous with '65/'66 Coltrane, Ayler, etc... levels of ecstatic catharsis, give this album a try. You'll hear that that's not all there is, or ever was.



Usually a mellow, swinging, relatively straight-forward set, these are some fantastic tunes featuring lovely, narrative solos put forth with graceful vigor. Columbia and Blue Note wish they still recruited and released artists and albums such as this. This is another one of those albums that should have long ago put to rest the notion that the outside/free/avant crowd cannot play "normal" music. Think of this as a fantastic, progressive, mid '60s Blue Note album (by guys you've maybe never heard of) that was lost for decades and then released about 10 years ago. If you can enjoy The Cry! and/or the progressive Jackie McLean, Bobby Hutcherson, etc... Blue Notes but Ayler, Cecil Taylor, etc... are too much for you, you'll be able to love this.



I have no doubt that Jemeel's solos (and beautiful tone!) here would earn him legions of new fans if 10,000 people ever heard this cd, and Breedlove was a great find for me. Emotionally he is so much prettier and more engaging than the trumpeter (the weak spot) on the album I'll be reviewing next.



Thinking of the way I consider this to be one of the great inside-out bands, I can't help but think that this little gem of a band spearheaded by the fallen hero, Denis Charles, was probably a major influence on the William Parker Quartet of Petit Oiseau (no idea why it won't allow a product link here. It's available via this site) and O'Neal's Porch fame. The liner-notes also feature the sort of eulogy that only William can write.



And only because I think it's incredibly unfortunate that it isn't carried here again yet, I have to tell you Eremite's MONUMENTAL 2 Days in April is back in print/has been reissued and is available via their site. No one with any interest in Fred Anderson, Kidd Jordan, William Parker or Hamid Drake should be without that masterpiece."