JAZZBO NOTES HIGHLY RECOMMENDED RECORDING
Rating: 
Is your music library absolutely clogged with terrific hard bop/post bop dates that don’t really break any new ground? Then you’ll want to pass up Joe Farrell’s obscure Sonic Text date.
Recorded in the late 70s, Sonic Text’s hard bop was very unfashionable and was duly ignored. But what a band! Sonic Text features Farrell (reeds) and Freddie Hubbard (trumpet) on the front line, with the underrated George Cables on piano and Peter Erskine on drums. The only question mark is Tony Dumas on bass, who I am unacquainted with.
It turns out that Dumas is an immaculate bass player with a gorgeous round tone, who can walk with the best of them. Hubbard too is in terrific form, playing the music he was born to play instead of watered down R&B fusion, as on some of his later CTI dates. Farrell, after so much time playing in fusion and light jazz settings, sounds reinvigorated here. One of the most melodic of hornmen, his lines have a singing quality. His solos are shapely statements with rigorous internal logic, almost as if they had been through composed. Cables plays with the utmost taste whether he is comping or soloing.
Just don’t expect innovation, and you won’t be disappointed with Sonic Text.
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