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Some people are always showing off their latest licks, how fast they can play or how complex is their phrasing.

Then, some people are just playing music. Luc Bartoli is one of them.

.

"I've long known that this "Coltrane-Brecker" thing has been done to death", Bartoli says, "so I do my best to sound original. Don't get me wrong, I love those legends, but when everybody steals the same musicians, everybody just sounds the same and that's the last thing I want ."

Bartoli says his influences on tenor range from classic, soulful players like Dexter Gordon ("Dexter's still the boss to me") or David 'Fathead' Newman, to modernists like Joe Henderson, David Murray and his current favorite, David Sanchez.

This album was cut one Friday morning, and everybody felt something was happenin'. Bartoli asked drummer Ed Mars to use brushes as much as he could because he wanted 'that' ambience: laid-back, but intense.

His bossa-nova composition on the title track, and Nostalgia by the late great Fats Navarro could be on the laid-back side, whereas Benny Golson's fiery 'Hassan's Dream' and Bartoli's unpredictable funk number 'Oneshot' could set for the intense side. All in all, Dexter Gordon's 'Flick to A Trick' takes it all home with gospel-tinged blues.

All the while, Luc Bartoli just plays from the heart, and you can tell the band is feelin' it.

"Everytime I jam and there is other tenors playing, they always seem to engage in some kind of battle. So the more they show off, the more I go into a "less is more" approach, and it just defuses the situation. I don't care if there's some cat that can play faster than me on "Cherokee", says Bartoli.

"I just do my thing."

A very deep thing at that.

-Slikk Tim, Monday 19th, May 2008