Beyond This

I love this talky album, full of unique style; with a star saxophone, warm sax, brush/drum, piano and bass and some strings.
"Rumble" late night moody, out on the shiny wet streets. This song moves you along. "Madagascar", mysterious with brush/drums, long and slow, the voices of the piano and sax speaking of their visions, at odds with the other. "Sound Passage" came out of nowhere - with sound - what can I say? Experimental jazz I guess. Like being in an eerie storm - don't want to be there! In Hell? "The Time Will Come" - a lovely tune of promise and hope, an elevation in mood with warm piano, sax and strings. "No Answer Given" is more melancholic, very slow in tempo, agonizingly slow and with a wrenching cry to heaven. "Port Werth" and "Dark Ahead" are nice mellow jazz tunes with long sad tales which tear at your heart, like sax blues. "This Next" is on the road jazz, beautiful and moving. "All We Have" - warm, mellow, slow and low - perfect for the end of the long day.
Beautiful and interesting album. A pleasure to listen.

The word "Jazz" within the musical genre conjures up so many styles and variations before you even get on to the plethora of sub-genres that clutter the world of jazz in its fullest form.

This album contains a real mish-mash of jazz styles which generally work well individually but fail to make a cohesive album once put together. As an example, just take tracks 3, 4 and 5. Track 3 sounds like the soundtrack to some American 50's cop show with military percussion and doom around the next corner. Track 4 is perhaps best described using terms like "experimental" and "avant-garde". The jazz element is there but much more in the background. Track 5, I would describe as "laid-back, late-night, smooth groove" music. Each track totally individual, totally acceptable and totally enjoyable in the right circumstance. Together on an album though is something different. I might be in the mood for more than one style but not three as diverse as these in one sitting and that's before we move onto the remaining tracks!

The music just gets pulled in too many directions for one release and I would much prefer a tighter structured album. More control, less change.
Thanks for the release but for me, variety is not always the spice of life.