BRIAN BLADE FELLOWSHIP
Perceptual
Blue Note
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Brian Blade is a phenomenally talented drummer; the sort that never lets his very prodigious chops get in the way of the music. The first time I heard him play was on TV, as part of a crackling trio backing guitarist / vocalist / producer Daniel Lanois (who guests on 2 tracks on Perceptual). I want to say that this performance was on Saturday Night Live but it has been over a decade since SNL has aired anything beyond the most lame, corporate-approved, and lifeless musical pap, I'm gonna say it was on the Conan O'Brian show. At any rate, I unsealed the next Lanois CD I could get my hands on just to see who the drummer was. He's that good. Lately he's been working with Kenny Garrett, Pat Metheny (as part of a trio with bassist Larry Grenadier), and Joni Mitchell (who lends her distinctive pipes to one tune on Perceptual), among others. Perhaps, then, it's no coincidence that Blade's second recordings of all-original tunes for Blue Note, Perceptual, is very similar in feel to the last few Pat Metheny Group recordings on ECM. I also detect similarities to the recordings that Mitchell did in the '70s with Larry Carlton and Tom Scott. Like both Metheny's group, and the LA Express (the group that Scott, Carlton, Max Bennett, John Guerin, et al., formed in the wake of their tenure with Joni), Blade's Fellowship is very much a working band. Listening to Perceptual and scanning the CD booklet, it's plain that these guys have hung out and played together for a long time in a number of musical settings. As a result, the music on Perceptual has the sort of cohesiveness that one would never dream of finding on a typical leader / sidemen session. On the minus side, after listening to the disk 6 or 7 times, I began to wonder if a band could have too much cohesion. So much of the disk sounds like so much of the rest of the disk that I had trouble staying interested in it. In the end, it just gets bogged down in its own glossy, sighing prettiness.

Guitarists Rosenwinkel and Easley are the star soloists. Both definitely have the legato guitar-as-a-horn thing down, and they play off each other extremely well. Together they combine to make the second cut, "Evinrude Fifty Fifty (Trembling)" a truly powerful musical statement. Though Rosenwinkel, a creative and versatile player who has recorded on a number of straight-ahead sessions as sideman and leader) for Criss Cross, with Paul Motian's Electric Bebop Band, and Human Feel (a quirky Boston-area group that also spawned drummer Jim Black and saxophonists Andrew D'Angelo and Chris Speed), shines throughout, it is Easley who grabs my attention. On both "Evinrude…" and the swaying, odd-metered "Crooked Creek," Easley's playing is a revelation. His pedal steel solos are the high points of this CD: stunning creations of agility and inspiration that made me wonder why I'd never heard of him outside of Blade's band. In fact, aside from Freddie Roulette, Eugene Chadbourne, and the guy who played on Bobby Previte's LPs for Gramavision 15 or so years ago, I am hard-pressed to think of any other jazz recordings that feature a pedal steel. Oh well. Pianist Jon Cowherd (who composed "Crooked Creek," the title track, and "Reconciliation") is, to my ears, from the Keith Jarrett / Bruce Hornsby end of the piano spectrum. A lot of his ideas have a subdued, folksy, country / gospel feel to them. Neither of the horn players made a big impression on me, though they are obviously talented individuals. Blade's playing is magnificent throughout, and he contributes guitar and some rather surprising near-falsetto vocals to the CD's final tune. To me, the music on Perceptual is really about atmosphere, mood and shading. This is both its strength and, ultimately, its undoing.

Dave Wayne

Track Listing: 1. Perceptual; 2. Evinrude Fifty-Fifty (Trembling); 3. Reconciliation; 4. Crooked Creek; 5. Patron Saint of Girls; 6. The Sunday Boys (Improvisation); 7. Variations of a Bloodline: a. From the Same Blood, b. Fellowship (Like Brothers), c. Mustangs (Class of 1988); 8. Steadfast; 9. Trembling

Personnel: Brian Blade, drums, percussion, acoustic guitar (Tracks 8, 9), voice (Track 9); Melvin Butler, tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone; Jon Cowherd, piano, Fender Rhodes, pump organ; Dave Easley, pedal steel guitar; Kurt Rosenwinkel, electric guitar, acoustic guitar; Christopher Thomas, acoustic bass, grunting; Myron Walden, alto saxophone, bass clarinet; Daniel Lanois, electric guitar (Track 8), pedal steel (Track 9); Joni Mitchell, vocal (Track 8)