Season Of Changes

現代ジャズドラムの最高峰に位置する巨人ブライアン・ブレイドが、カート・ローゼンウィンケル、マイロン・ウォルデンらを迎え2008年に発表した傑作サードアルバム『Season OfChanges』が、ブライアン・ブレイド自身が立ち上げた新レーベル"STONER HILL RECORDS"より再リリース決定!!
持ち前の壮大な世界観、ブライアンと盟友ジョン・カウハード(p,key)による卓越した楽曲、カートをはじめとする傑出したアーティストの演奏が結晶化した2000年代ジャズの金字塔であり、前作『Perceptual』と並び最高傑作のひとつとされる名作!!発売から14年を経て待望の初アナログ化となりました!!
この機会にぜひコレクションに加えてください!!

Brian Blade last led a recording session with his band Fellowship for Blue Note in 2000. In the interim he's become the busiest drummer in showbiz. Blade has been playing and touring with everyone from Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan to Kenny Garrett and Joshua Redman, and holding the drum chair in Wayne Shorter's fine quartet. Perceptual was an excellent sophomore outing by a sprawling, ambitious yet very focused septet. The Fellowship Band has played together during this time, at festivals all over the world, in New York and New Orleans clubs and halls. Seasons of Changes is the Verve debut of this unit, whose name is now Brian Blade & the Fellowship Band. The personnel from Perceptual all return, save for pedal steel guitarist Dave Easley, who hasn't been replaced. The nine tunes are all originals, written by either Blade or pianist Jon Cowherd (who co-produced the set the leader). The front line is comprised of guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, and saxophonists Myron Walden and Melvin Butler, with bassist Chris Thomas rounding out the rhythm section. The musical range of this group is vast, as are the influences that inform its individual members, but as a unit they sound like no one else. Their long-term working relationship has paid off handsomely here; these tunes are all bravely voiced and beautifully articulated compositions of modern jazz. (The word "modern" should be translated to mean "in the 2000s era" rather than as an empty signifier that denotes type or subgenre in this context.) These selections have been molded by many different styles of music from the American vernacular: from folk and gospel to pop and soul standards, from country and blues to the spiritual jazz of Coltrane and Strata East, and even rock. But there is no mistaking what Seasons of Changes is. Something this ambitious yet earthy, so sophisticated, yet accessible to virtually any set of ears, could only be jazz. Blade's "Rubylou's Lullaby" is a midtempo ballad that reflects the gentleness of evening in Rosenwinkel's open six-strings and outlined by Cowherd's piano. The rest of the band enters with a series of almost pastoral notes before the swinging in the drums walks a line between elegiac country music, and a shuffling piano line, and the gorgeous melody articulated by the horns with the pianist's soulful golden fills. There is nothing about this tune that hurries, yet it unfolds into a gorgeous romantic paean that manages to swing and contain some stellar breaks by Blade. The short solo by Cowherd is almost majestic. The pianist's "Return of the Prodigal Son" feels based more on the great painting by Rembrandt depicting the gospel story than it does on the text. Here, nicely flowing lines between the horns intersect with the piano's ostinati and evoke a sense of travel, finding an open space and just moving toward it. Rosenwinkel begins a solo that hints at some of the slightly chaotic blowing by Butler on the tenor, and held in place by the rhythm section, which begins to assert itself in earnest. The alto saxophone acts as a counterweight to the seeming chaos and translates between the two poles. It's not a battle but a dispute, where balances are tenderly kept for a little while, but as Cowherd's brief solo enters, a cappella, the sense of return, harmony, and forgiveness are voiced effusively in the ensemble's balanced sense of voice and harmony. The title track, which is the longest thing here, is also the most ambitious. It begins with Cowherd (its composer) playing a simple yet almost melancholy progression. Bass clarinet by Walden, tenor saxophone, and Blade's tom-toms slowly rumble in this balladic dirge before his cymbal begins to start the pace. It's sectioned several times over, each section folding out of the last, and when the saxophones and Rosenwinkel decide to play as one, the theme becomes the lift-off point for a series of interlocking grooves that are almost like separate songs except for their seamless we to be continued...

ブライアン・ブレイド・フェロウシップ・バンドによる2008年の名作が自身のレーベルから再発&初ヴァイナル化。この比類無きドラマーの魅力を追求するうえで、この一枚は外せません!ブルーノートからの前二作を経て輝きを増した音楽世界。もうひとりのバンドの要であり美しいフレーズを自在に操る才人ジョン・カワードをはじめ、他のメンバーたちも凄まじくいい仕事をしています。ジェフ・パーカーからバトンを受けて、このバンドで更なる進化を遂げたカート・ローゼンウィンケルもシビれるプレイの連続。聴き終えたあとは、いつもの景色が違って見えました...短い秋のお供にぜひ。
intoxicate (C)谷本真悟