Search - Greg Osby :: St Louis Shoes

An Osby deconstruction!

Dr.D.Treharne | Exeter, Devon, United Kingdom | 06/26/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It was a brave decision by Osby to take so many well known tunes and make them his own. The success of the project owes as much to the band, as it does to Osby. Nicholas Peyton proves to be an excellent foil for Osby's eclectic style, and Harold O'Neil on piano is given acres of space to develop his own take on the programme. The rhythm section is tight, with Green on drums proving he can be both propulsive and supportive. Some of the tunes are barely recognisable as compositions that you may have heard before, whilst others are given the lightest of makeovers. My favourite tracks are two Ellington tracks, one early period "East St Louis Toodle-oo" and the much later "The Single petal of a rose". Both have wonderful contributions from both the frontmen who spur each other on to deliver greater depths of sound. However, perhaps bettering both of these is a magnificent version of Cassandra Wilson's "Whirlwind Soldier" transformed into something completely different from her version.There's not a track on this album that isn't transformed by the ensemble collected here, and it would be interesting to know what Thelonious Monk might have made of the version of "Light Blue". This album might not be what you might have expected given the track listing.It's an album that will certainly deliver more layers with repeated listening, and is highly recommended."

Back to the Future

Jan P. Dennis | Monument, CO USA | 06/25/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It takes a special kind of player to even attempt something like this. What we've got here is a very unusual meeting of tradition and modernism--just the kind of thing that yields the most spectacular results. To bring in an analogy from far afield--New Testament studies, of all things--it strikes me that Osby is doing for jazz what N. T. Wright is doing for Jesus studies--delving deep into the roots to come up with a genuinely new approach that is completely consonant with the tradition.Osby has done something both audacious and obvious--he's deconstructed a bunch of hoary old standards to come up with something entirely new. And it's just not any old standards: We're talking about the absolute giants of jazz--Ellington, Parker, Gillespie, Monk, Gershwin, plus a couple cultural icons, namely Lieber and Stoller. Why would anyone want to take on such exalted personages? You'd be crazy to--unless you had complete access to what made them geniuses and could unravel that genius and put it together in some kind of new form(at).And that's just what Osby does. He takes what we're intimately familiar with, turns it on its head, and shows us, anew, what's going on with its brilliance. Quite a feat.I'm going to go out on a limb here (something I do quite regularly . . .) and say that this is the release of the year. Yes, there has been a bumper crop of amazing releases in the first half of 2003, not least Wayne Shorter's first studio acoustic album in years, Alegria, John Scofield's great jazz/funk outing, Up All Night, Jacky Terrasson's Smile, Dave Douglas' Freak In. But this tops them all.Why? First off, he limits himself to the classic jazz format: two horn front, piano, bass, drums--no electronics, not strings, no fancy percussion. Second, he limits himself to jazz and pop culture classics--no impossibly catchy new funk, house, or hip-hop stuff. Third, he imbues this material--using such limited resources--with a genuinely new sensibility, revealing its profundities and classic forms even as he uncovers strikingly new aspects of it.What about the players? Osby himself is in great form, as is his frontline partner, Nicholas Payton. These two constantly conjure up magical melodic/harmonic statements. Robert Hurst on bass sounds better than ever. The other two, Harold O'Neal on piano and Rodney Green on drums, I've never heard before, but they acquit themselves with aplomb and near-magical deftness in this difficult setting. O'Neal, especially, has the feel about him of a monster player.This is essential jazz of the highest order. Not to be missed."

Junkmedia.org Review - Blending tradition with innovation

junkmedia | Los Angeles, CA | 06/27/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Here saxophonist Greg Osby explores his musical past all the while blazing a new path. Sounds like a cliché? No, this is Osby exploring his past through the multi-faceted lens of his current abilities. Blending tradition and innovation, Greg Osby turns standards on their ends and makes them sound new again.Refraining from original material and favoring standards is an unusual choice for Osby, who is best known for his early association with the M-Base collective, a sort of pre-acid jazz funk group. Since then Osby has developed a style as dependent on abstracted funk and hip-hop rhythms as it is on non-linear phrasing. Osby's most difficult music sounds almost academic in its execution, but with St. Louis Shoes he seems to have tempered his abstract inclinations with a more melodic sensibility.Osby and his group take time honored chestnuts, rearrange and reharmonize them, add metric rhythm shifts and then solo through them as though they were newly written tunes, all while keeping the original spirit of the pieces. Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, W.C. Handy and even Jack Dejohnette all get composer credit on this session.Though the music ranges from esoteric to overexposed, all of the pieces feel fresh again. The album opener, Ellington's "East St. Louis Toodle-Oo" gets progressively more complex as the band goes through the changes, sounding more modernistic with each repetition of the theme. Although still recognizable as an Ellington piece by it finale, Osby puts his own personal stamp on it, reminding you just who's playing who here.While not as obviously challenging as his previous release, Inner Circle, this disc has the added bonus of showcasing former young lion trumpet prodigy Nicholas Payton in a much more interesting role, that of creative improvisor (as opposed to his previous role as Wynton Marsalis' tool). St Louis Shoes is Greg Osby sneaking through the mainstream -- catch him if you can.Troy Collins Junkmedia.org Review"