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Mark O'Leary - On The Shore (2007) [FLAC]
Original Release Date: September 18, 2007
Label: Clean Feed
Copyright: 2007 Clean Feed
Genres: Jazz/General
ASIN: B000WF3QQS
.: Tracklist :
Mark O'Leary is a guitarist and composer born in Cork, Ireland. He was educated at Musicians Institute in Los Angeles. Mark O'Leary is considered by some to be the most technically gifted and innovative guitarist Ireland has ever produced. The release of numerous CDs in the past 3 or 4 years has helped him gain a growing following not just in Ireland but abroad as well. His music is released on Leo records, Aucourant, Ayler, FMR, Creative Sources, Cleanfeed, Tibprod Italy, Re:konstruKt record labels. Levitation with Tomasz Stanko and Billy Hart has received global praise and received 4 stars in Penguin guide to Jazz. His cd Awakening with Steve Swallow and Pierre Favre has also been very well received. His cd On The Shore on Cleanfeed was in freejazz stef top 10 cds of the year and Ron Steed of IMC voted it his favourite cd of the 2007. His cd St Fin Barre's recorded in St Fin Barre's Cathedral in Cork has also been well received. His cd with Cuong Vu and Tom Rainey Waiting, which is a tribute to Irish Writer Samuel Beckett received 5 stars from Freejazz stef and strong reviews from BBC and The Guardian. The cd Television with Han Bennink on Ayler records has also been held as a serious statement in the evolution of guitar/drum duos. His duo with Sunny Murray also on Ayler has been widely praised also. He is also an electronic artist composing soundscapes that can be described as post-industrial ambient /Landscape three have been released on Portuguese label Creative Sources Skyshifter, Fabrikraum and 4 Urban Landscapes, the latter features environmental sounds from Cork City Centre, dialect/dialogue, stonecutting and poetry. He has performed in over 30 countries, in some of the most prestigious venues and festivals, including Kennedy Center, North Sea Jazz Festival, Knitting Factory, Tonic, Vortex, The Loft and Athens Euro-Jazz.
I have already praised Mark O'Leary before for his great sense of music, and he proves it again on this record, and how! With Alex Cline on drums and a double trumpet front line consisting of Jeff Kaiser and John Fumo, the line-up is definitely unusual (apart from Jacek Kochan's "Another Blowfish", with Eric Vloeimans and Piotr Wojtasik on trumpet, I'm not aware of any other quartet with a double trumpet front line). The music on this record is light, spacious, elegant, ... I would almost say the musical equivalent of high quality champagne, very tasty, with bubbles, something to savour with every sip. The guitar plays a very prominent role on the whole CD, often with a very low tone, reminiscent of some of John Abercrombie's albums, but more avant-garde, more creative, with the two trumpets and the drums adding shades of sound that bring depth and sculptural relief to the music, even if they're pushed a little to the back in the sound editing, a nice touch which adds to the overall atmosphere. The whole quartet is absolutely brilliant. Alex Cline's playing is precise, accurate, accentuating loosely, performing the difficult feat of drumming on music that is essentially without explicit rhythm. The two trumpets use every shade and sound their instruments can produce, in various intensities, volume changes and lengths, because there is mostly no melody to hear - texture, tonal changes and contrast is all there is, especially exemplified by the long title track. O'Leary himself gets every possible sound out of his guitar as well, and whether it's plain acoustic, or one of the many effects on his electric guitar, his playing is not focused on the playing itself but on the musical moods he creates, and it's also coherent throughout the album, regardless of how he uses his instrument. O'Leary doesn't hesitate to push his foot switches once in a while, bringing sorching fusion-like solos, pushing the trumpets and the drums to high levels of intensity as in "Point Sketch", but most of the music is subdued, tentative, fragile, creating open-ended soundscapes, composed with skill and feeling, building layers of music to create a very distinct mood, which is nostalgic, sad, but also reverent, jubilant or mysterious at times.You can hear seagulls and whales, or even sirens, the surf in the distance, or lapping waves close-by, ... that's how evocative the music is without needing to try to imitate those sounds. Another mystery of the record is whether it has been dubbed or not (that's the problem or disadvantage of downloading, there are no liner notes to guide you in your appreciation). Most of it sounds too beautiful to be the result of spontaneous improvization, too carefully crafted to have been left to chance, but then again, it sounds too open to be composed, and these are great musicians, so you can't tell. One could also argue whether this is jazz or not, but asking the question is irrelevant. Answering it even more. This is absolutely excellent music. That's the most important thing.
Tracks:
1. Staring at the Sun 15:44
2. Dancing With the Wind 4:32
3. Morning 5:29
4. Harvest 6:33
5. Evening 4:32
6. Point Sketch 13:51
7. Vespers 6:09
8. Voices From the Past 3:45
9. On the Shore
PLEASE GIVE AT LEAST WHAT YOU HAVE TAKEN
STAY IN SEED PLEASE
.: Other Files :.
log+cue+m3u+cover
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