It’s not often a disc leaves me speechless… for the wrong
\nreasons.<\/p>\n
As open-minded as I try to be about music genres I don’t know
\nmuch about, there are times that the product leaves me scratching
\nmy head and asking, “What the hell was
\n
\nthat<\/i>
\n<\/b> ?!?” Experimental improvisational musicians Joseph Jarman
\n& Leroy Jenkins have done this to me with their recent
\ncollaboration
\nOut Of The Mist<\/i>, a disc that is quite painful to listen to
\nat times.<\/p>\n
I don’t know why these two musicians have been pigeonholed as
\n“new age”; I don’t even know what category they accurately fall
\nunder. More of a tonal headache than anything else, they take the
\nspirit of new age music and crush it under the weight of their own
\nidealistic plans.<\/p>\n
Oh, sure, there are moments that stand out as exceptional – but
\nthey don’t reveal themselves until the second spin of the disc.
\n“Opening” is one such track, a mixture of kalimba (or thumb piano),
\nchime and penny whistle (which is provided by Lindsey Horner – she
\nalso plays the bass) takes a bit of time to get used to. Once
\nyou’re in the mood, it almost sounds like something you’d hear deep
\nin Tibet, and is often pretty. Likewise, the album’s closer “Chant”
\nhas some interesting moments as voices, chimes and gongs blend in
\nto create a spiritual tone.<\/p>\n
But often the downfall of
\nOut Of The Mist<\/i> is the pairing of instruments that don’t
\nbelong together played with no idea where the tune is going.
\n“Hands” features Jenkins on harmonica – and the resulting cacophony
\nmade me long for some semblance of musical order. Somehow, mixing
\nthe harmonica with lsan, cowbells and piano just doesn’t work…
\nnot in this case.<\/p>\n
Maybe more of the problem with
\nOut Of The Mist<\/i> is the fact it sounds like it was recorded
\nwithout a musical script. Jarman and Jenkins tend to deviate from
\nany chordal structure often – worse yet, they seem to revel in the
\ndischordance they produce. “Prayer At Sea” could have been such a
\nwonderful track, but often the Peruvian clay flute (Jarman), voice
\n(Jenkins) and piano (provided by Myra Melford) sound like they’re
\nplaying three different songs at once. “Riding Currents” features
\nviola and bass clarinet, both sounding as if they have different
\nobjectives in the song. This is not art… this is madness.<\/p>\n
No doubt there are some people to whom this might appeal to, but
\nanyone who turns to this disc expecting new age music a la Yanni –
\nor even jazz a la Thelonious Monk – are going to be in for one hell
\nof a disappointment… not that Yanni would have been any
\nbetter.<\/p>\n
It would be easy to sit at the keyboard and take potshots at
\nOut Of The Mist<\/i>, but the music speaks for itself much louder
\nthan any criticism I could level at it. Jarman and Jenkins are near
\nlegends in ambient jazz – too bad this disc isn’t anything close to
\nmusic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7258],"rating":[5616],"class_list":["post-38683","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-joseph-jarman-leroy-jenkins","rating-rating-d"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38683"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}