Search - Steve Lacy :: Vespers

Lacy's little big band

N. Dorward | Toronto, ON Canada | 11/11/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This disc features Lacy's regular working band of the 1980s & 1990s--with Steve Potts, Irene Aebi, Bobby Few, J.-J. Avenel & John Betsch--plus a couple of guests in Ricky Ford on tenor & Tom Varner on french horn. Its tracks are all settings of poems (rather sententious ones, I'm afraid) by the Bulgarian poet Blaga Dimitrova; thus Aebi's vocals are very much to the fore. Forewarned is forearmed (she is, as they say, an acquired taste). The music itself I like a lot: it's characteristic Lacy in its dogged repetitions of ascending or descending figures, and is played with great vigour & charm by the octet. The only slight disappointment comes in Lacy's characteristic refusal to hog the spotlight: each soloist gets one track as a solo feature, and so Lacy (beyond his lovely opening figures on "Multidimensional") only takes one extended solo. If you're looking for a good dose of Lacy's soprano, look elsewhere (e.g. the superb _Bye-Ya_ on Freelance, or his many solo albums); if you're looking for a good band performance, this is the right album. Despite the question marks over Aebi's singing & the choice of texts, _Vespers_ remains one of Lacy's most interesting 1990s performances."