IN THE GARDEN
Yusef Lateef, Adam Rudolph, Go: Organic
Orchestra
Meta Records, Venice CA, USA and YAL Records,
Amherst MA, USA, 2003
www.metarecords.com
www.yuseflateef.com
Reviewed by Michael R. (Mike) Mosher
<mosher@svsu.edu>, Saginaw Valley
State University, University Center MI 48710
USA.
IN THE GARDEN is drawn from two nights of
improvisational concerts, and was recorded
live on March 1 and 2, 2003 at the Electric
Lodge of Venice, California. It is the work
of flute and reedsman Yusef Lateef and percussionist
Adam Rudolph, the latter directing his Go:
Organic Orchestra. Lateef asserts himself
as a solid practitioner (for about four
decades) of "black classical music",
post-John Coltrane free jazz.
The opener of the first of the concerts
two disks is "Little Tree", featuring
a propulsive, loping beat and Africanesque
scat singing, with a precise call-and-response
moment that must have been scripted. Like
all improvisational, music it varies in
strength and conviction, at worst like Martin
Dennys 1950s exotica, before it finally
comes to a full stop. "Nanna"
contains searching sax notes and beats reminiscent
of the eclectic British improviser Lol Coxhill,
while "Morphic Resonance" has
swirling potential but doesnt quite
coalesce. In "Lobelia, Euphorbia, Rock",
Lateefs flute is evocative of Igor
Stravinskys "Rites of Spring".
"Trace Elements" joins Lateefs
tenor saxophone in a duet with Sarah Schoenbecks
bassoon. At first stately and contemplative,
we are given a sax-rich cinematic spy movie
opening, soon shading into a manic rhumba
with Alex Cline and Hariss Eisenstadt providing
drums and percussion. "Root Pressure"
ends in echoing subway-station sax solos.
On the second disk, "Amanita"
suggests African village festivity in its
percussion and a counterpoint of flutes
and balafon. Its insistent atonality and
a saxophone march is in stark contrast to
"Formative Impulses", where creamy,
traditional tonality suggests George Gershwin
or Richard Rodgers. This pieces second
movement fails to develop, while its third
builds intensly to dissolve in a Lateef
solo stabbing like separated brushstrokes,
seeking form but not necessarily achieving
that aim.
"Moisture Droplet" is melodic
and thoughtful, almost bluesy in the best
sense of the word, and "Chaotic Attractors"
alternates strong melody with somewhat scatterbrained
passages before coming to a whistling finish.
IN THE GARDEN is an enjoyable two discs
of improvisational music that mustve
been rich in performance. It will serve
as a good soundtrack for doing artwork,
inspirational work music in my own studio,
or to broaden and stimulate the creativity
of my hardworking university art students.