Ben Rosenblum Nebula Project : A Thousand Pebbles (One Trick Dog)

From the first minutes of this CD we feel that we are going to have to deal with a music of an uncommon richness.

And indeed after a repetitive intro of the piano the luxuriant sonorities of the whole formation begin to unfold their splendors. A dense sound paste where the timbres and the phrases of the trumpet and the sax blend in counterpoint or in unison intoning an alert air which will lead, after a piano solo of a sovereign tranquility and a return of the whole group, to a ritornello of an absolute candor led by the accordion which replaces the piano.

We are obviously dealing with the work of a composer and arranger of the first rank.

©Photo CK Photography

On the second piece it is the accordion which leads the dance: an accordion with a warm sound and a singing phrasing for a music which combines a folk tone and a very jazz swing and where the guitar will take over for a beautifully constructed solo.

Then it’s the tenor sax that comes in for a jazz theme of an assumed classicism on which the piano and the trumpet will take solos that one would think came out of the pen of Duke Ellington.

And one could not end up evoking the various currents which cross this multicoloured and multiform music.

A bit of Jewish tradition, Bulgarian tunes, traces of blues, jazz that is both modern and rooted in tradition, tasty solos, a supple tonic pulse, a group sound that is totally personal and beautifully worked…

And this melting pot never sounds artificial as the cohesion of the group and the individual sounds of the musicians constitute the cement that holds the whole together. One feels that these instrumentalists, at the service of a first-rate composer/arranger, could appropriate any music and make it their own. At the same time bathed in tradition and open to various influences, Ben Rosenblum‘s music breathes life, invites to dance, sings in full voice. In short, it is hard to see who could resist its charm, from the most hardened jazz fan to the most candid neophyte.

A convivial music, therefore, admirably shaped and totally delightful.