Here’s a Belgian band that immediately stands out for its instrumentation, in which the melody is mostly taken over by tenor sax, guitar and cello.
The result is a very distinctive sound that could be described as chamber jazz, insofar as the double-bass/drums rhythmic pair remains fairly discreet and the percussionist briefly swaps his set for a glockenspiel.
Most of the compositions are written by the guitarist, who adopts an ever-changing sound in which traces of rough rock rub shoulders with clear lines inherited from baroque music.
The tenor – who we’ve heard in more free-form contexts – adopts a relaxed, melodic style here, where his velvety tone is a marvel.
As for the cello, essentially played with the bow, it gives the ensemble a particularly distinctive color.
The addition to the repertoire of Jimmy Giuffre’s The Train and the River and Carla Bley’s Vashkar clearly demonstrates the quintet’s aesthetic orientation: music that is essentially melodic and concerned with the group sound, influenced by the pen of two American musicians who – in parallel with their work in large orchestras – have given their letters of nobility to an intimate and subtly sophisticated jazz whose charm is hard to resist.
Michel Mast – tenor saxophone
Jan-Sebastiaan Degeyter – guitars, banjo, omnichord, effects
Eline Duerinck – cello
Cyrille Obermüller – double bass
Marcos Della Rocha – drums, percussion, glockenspiel
Fetish was released by BMC -Werf, on April 19, 2024.
©Photo Header, Tom de Witte
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