Oneness - Andrea Marcelli

Jul

18

Oneness - Andrea Marcelli

≡ Category: 1990s, Fusion, Music Reviews, Recommended |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Rating:

The first thing you’re struck with, listening to the opening track, Again, on Andrea Marcelli’s Oneness, is how slick the soundscape is. It’s about as far from a live sound as I can imagine. It sounds like every instrument was separately miked and massaged to death in the studio.

Fusion that sounds like this tends to end up crossing over the into the Adult Contemporary marketplace, on radio stations like the Quiet Storm. It reminds me of some of the tunes on Steps Ahead’s Magnetic Album and NYC albums, which makes sense. Again features both Mike Mainieri (vibraphone) and Bendik (tenor sax), who were also with Steps Ahead.

But don’t write Oneness off just yet. The tunes often have a conceptual toughness that belies their glossy surfaces. Take the opening tune, Again. Ignore Bendik’s smarmy tone on saxophone if you can (I know it’s hard) and you’ll notice that the structure of the tune is unpredictable and interesting. It’s also got a sparkling acoustic piano solo by Kei Agagi.

Then we’ve got the title track, Oneness. Some of Andrea Marcelli’s quirks as a composer and arranger are starting to become clear (he composed and arranged all of the tracks, as well as playing drums, synthesizer, and clarinet). He’s got a serious jones for pretty sounds, and he likes a lot of sonic variety. We get Ralph Towner’s 12-string guitar, Gary Thomas’ flute and no less than three percussionists flavoring this track. He also likes to use parallel harmonies a lot — plenty of suspended 9th chords, which again, are very conventionally pretty.

But he doesn’t shy away from complex ideas in his compositions. Oneness is composed in sections that ebb and flow out of one another, changing rhythms as they do so. Andrea Marcelli also likes soloists with a knotty, challenging improvisational style. Mitch Forman on acoustic piano contributes a solo which ventures quite a bit outside of the harmonies that Andrea Marcelli has supplied.

And so it goes. It becomes apparent that Andrea Marcelli’s music usually only has a surface resemblance to the vapid fuzak we have all come to know and loathe. The one exception is Song For You, an appallingly simplistic piece of pandering garbage that doesn’t belong on this release and will give ammunition to those naysayers who would like to dismiss Andrea Marcelli’s music as fuzak. If you buy Oneness, I would program Song For You out of the cd in order to forstall nausea.

Andrea Marcelli has assembled quite a cast for this album. Other than the musicians already mentioned, he has hired such luminaries as Allan Holdsworth (guitar), Marc Johnson (bass), Gary Willis (bass), Frank Colon (percussion), and Jimmy Johnson (bass).

Overall, Oneness is a stimulating listen, even considering the sometimes cloying sweetness of the production and arranging techniques Andrea Marcelli has chosen to use.