Search - Ralph Alessi and Modular Theatre :: Open Season

Avante Garde Jazz with Spoken Word

Scott Williams | Oakland, CA United States | 05/07/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Overview:

Trumpeter Ralph Alessi's 2009 release, Open Season features a collection of songs recorded in 2002. The style of the songs is contemporary avante garde jazz, and many of the tracks feature spoken word / poetry. If bizarre lyrics or spoken word are a turnoff to you, you should avoid this album. Personally, I'm not a fan of the spoken word, but I think it works pretty well here and I enjoyed the album. However, I prefer the more traditional post bop album, "Look" that Alessi released in 2007. If you are not familiar with Ralph Alessi, he has an pretty, airy trumpet tone. To go along with that he has great chops and is a good song writer. He's got pretty much everything you look for in a trumpet player. The only knock against him in my opinion is sometimes he goes a big too abstract/avante garde for my taste.



In addition to Ralph Alessi, this album features Peter Epstein on saxaphones, Ben Street or Mark Helias on bass, Mark Ferber or Gerald Cleaver on drums and Will Jennings or William Coltrane on voice.



Song Highlights:



Video - the dominating, repetive bass line and the bizarre lyrics about all the video of you, creates a real parnoid mood.



Tranesonic - Once again some real bizarre lyrics. The lyrics reference floating zephyrs, which really fits in well with the dreamy trancelike mood of the song. The credits indicate that this is Coltrane's Tranesonic. Hearing this version didn't bring back any memories of the Coltrane version, but it's been a long time since I listened to it. I'm guessing this is a pretty loose interpretation.

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