Wide Angles - Michael Brecker

Dec

5

Wide Angles - Michael Brecker

≡ Category: 2000s, Essential, Post Bop, Progressive Big Band, Reviews |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING

Rating:

In order to appreciate Wide Angles, you have to approach it the right way. Brecker is not playing small combo jazz, in which you would expect him to interact extensively with the other musicians, such as violinst Mark Feldman. Wide Angles (issued on the Verve label) is a date like the ones Miles Davis used to do with arranger Gil Evans, like Sketches of Spain or Miles Ahead. You wouldn’t carp because the musicians on a Miles Davis/Gil Evans date were used in a supportive manner instead of being out front, and you shouldn’t on Wide Angles either.

So, in this review, I’m going to talk about two men, Gil Goldstein, who arranged the compositions on Wide Angles, and Michael Brecker, the star soloist.

In the past, I haven’t liked Gil Goldstein’s work all that much. In his collaboration with saxophonist Dave Liebman on Westside Story Today, I found his arrangements and keyboard playing rather tasteless. His synthesizer textures on that date were inorganic sounding and rinky dink at the same time.

So it’s a complete shock to me how advanced the arrangements are on Wide Angles. Goldstein is working with a large force of woodwinds, brass, and strings, and although he credits Gil Evans with teaching him everything he knows about arranging, Goldstein sounds quite a bit different than his mentor. For one thing, Evans’ orchestrations were often delicate and featherweight. Goldstein’s arrangements on Wide Angles are always vigorous and full. Although brass or strings or woodwinds might predominate at any one time, the arrangements on Wide Angles are of a piece, almost as if the band were one large instrument, emphasizing different tonal qualities at different times. Another striking thing about Goldstein’s arrangements is that he eschews chordal textures for contrapuntal line writing. The harmonies are almost never explicitly stated, but rather implied. This has the effect of making even a familiar piece like Never Alone mysterious. There is an interior logic to the orchestrations, but Goldstein’s arranging strategies keep the listener off balance. You’re almost never sure where you are in the music or where it’s going, but it always feels right. Goldstein won a Grammy for arranging on Wide Angles, and for once, the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences got it right.

On Wide Angles, Michael Brecker embarked on a major evolution in his playing that continued up until his last date, Pilgrimage. Always a fluent player, Brecker seemed to break through an invisible barrier on Wide Angles. There is no hesitation in Brecker’s ceaseless flow of melody. His thoughts seem to translate instantaneously to his fingers and out of his horn. Brecker had long relied on certain tics and tricks in his playing, but by Wide Angles, he’d consigned that crutch to the dustbin. He’s spontaneously creating without a net like Coltrane used to do. And his harmonic language had become so advanced by that point that he often loses me. Not that what he’s playing is ugly in any way. It’s beautiful, and like Goldstein’s arranging, has an interior logic, but I can no longer follow where Brecker’s going, or predict what he’s going to play.

When you add on the gorgeous production (for which Goldstein also justifiably won a Grammy), which makes every instrument clear and separate, this makes Wide Angles one of the best releases of 2003.