Fat Kid Wednesdays - The Art Of Cherry
ARTIST.....: Fat Kid Wednesdays
TITLE......: The Art Of Cherry
LABEL......: Hope Street / Nocturne
URL........: www.surseine.com/musicians_fat_kid.html
RIP DATE...: Aug-06-2005
STORE DATE.: Apr-00-2005
GENRE......: Jazz
QUALITY....: VBR / 44.1Hz / Joint-Stereo
SIZE.......: 109,5 MB
Track Listing:
01 - Chaque Heure Est Un Depart (Krystof Komeda) 06:13
02 - Guinea (Don Cherry / Eternal River) 08:28
03 - To Neneh By Don From Jacques (Jacques Thollot 03:52
/ Editions Musicales Nato)
04 - Call Me (Don Cherry - Elli Medeiros / Kabami) 04:29
05 - Art Deco (Don Cherry / Eternal River) 06:53
06 - Pose Ton Fardeau Et Remets La Machine En 06:05
Route (Francois Tusques)
07 - The Thing (Don Cherry / Unart) 10:54
08 - All Thru The Night (Don Cherry - Lou Reed 07:32
/ Metal Machine)
09 - Bamako Love (Don Cherry / Eternal River) 03:55
10 - Song For Biko (Johnny Dyani / Steeple Chase) 08:06
11 - Humus (Don Cherry) 12:27
─────
78:54 min
Release Notes:
The Art Of Cherry
Part One: Dancing With Don, 01-06
Part Two: Singing With Don, 07-10
Part Three: Breathing With Don, 11
Fat Kid Wednesdays are:
JT Bates - drums
Adam Linz - double bass
Michael Lewis - saxophones
Accompanied by on this recording:
Greg Lewis - trumpet on 01, 06
Debbie Duncan - vocal on 04
Carei Thomas - vocal on 04
James Diers - vocal on 08
On "Humus" JT, Adam and Michael also play little
things (with and without electricity)
Fat Kid Wednesdays are skronky jazz cats who are nothing less than
captivating. With JT Bates on drums and Adam Linz on bass, Michael
Lewis is a rare saxophonist who infuses beauty, melody and superb
technique with vein popping runs and grunts that tell incredible
stories. French jazz legend Francois Tusques was so impressed by
this Twin Cities trio for their premiere in Paris that he wrote
his own review. They have just finished an album entitled "The Art
of Cherry," which is a reflection on Don Cherry's work, that will
be released in Europe followed by the U.S.
-------------
After more than four years as a public entity, and considerably
longer as a playing one, the locally based jazz trio has hatched
an album--The Art of Cherry, a tribute to trumpeter and composer
Don Cherry, best known for his stint in Ornette Coleman's
"classic" quartet. Next month, the notorious homebodies also
embark on a six-date tour of France, where they played three gigs
last summer. "For a long time," Bates continues, "we only played
at our houses. We have this slow pace that I think has been great.
We realized on the way back from a show we played in Eau Claire
last month that it was our first out-of-town gig aside from the
French shows."
The kids may be fat, but they're nobody's idlers; all work
relentlessly inside the local jazz world and out. Bassist Adam
Linz, also of George Cartwright's GloryLand PonyCat, is a working
DJ who excels at beat-mixing trickily constructed IDM. Saxophonist
Michael Lewis plays in Happy Apple as well as his aunt Wendy's
meta-rock band, Redstart. Bates's extra-Wednesdays activities
range from solo laptopping to recent dates with Rob Skoro.
Still, the trip couldn't come at a better time. St. Paul's Turf
Club, host of the band's Monday night Clown Lounge residence for
the better part of the millennium, changed hands recently. Rather
than cope with the transformations that new ownership inevitably
engenders, the fellows decided to leave the nest--just in time for
a transatlantic flight.
Globetrotter Cherry spent a good deal of time in France, where he
worked with Polish composer Krzysztof Komeda on the soundtrack for
Jerzy Skolimowski's Le Depart (The Departure) in the early '60s.
The album's opener, "Chaque heure est un depart" ("Every Hour Is a
Departure"), evokes Gato Barbieri's music for the later Last Tango
in Paris--not without reason. The saxophonist, who played on the
original Komeda session, clearly paid attention.
Augmented by Lewis's uncle Greg on trumpet, Fat Kid play the song
straight at first, letting its voluptuous theme sink in before
easing into a bebop-flavored dialogue between relatives that
breaks down to unaccompanied abstraction. Bates and Linz's reentry
signals a move into freer terrain still, horns gamboling around
the melody like a pair of feral lambs.
As with most of the album, the band learned the song by ear.
"Michael functions better that way," Bates offers. "He'd rather
immediately internalize it, as opposed to using a chart for a
while and finally memorizing it." It's easy to see why: Cherry, an
arranger's arranger, rarely wrote for small ensembles. As the
trio's sole non-rhythm section voice, Lewis has to capture and
convey the better part of each composition's melodic content,
carrying the weight of several players. The sooner he understands
a piece on an immediate physical level, the better.
But the business side of the record came easily, courtesy of Jean
Rochard, who tapped the band for his new Hope Street label's
inaugural release. The Minnesota Sur Seine festival co-founder and
Nato label head also came up with the Cherry-picking concept. "I
met Jean through Michael," Bates recalls. "He really dug Happy
Apple and helped them out with their first Universal France
record. Shortly after, he called me and asked if Fat Kid wanted to
do a record. It's really cool--having never tried to do anything
like that and this guy just calls us and says, 'Hey.' I feel
really lucky." (citypages.com)
www.clownlounge.com