When Elephants Dream Of Music - Bob Moses

Apr

23

When Elephants Dream Of Music - Bob Moses

≡ Category: Free Jazz, Jazz Funk, Jazz Rock, Post Bop, Progressive Big Band, Reviews, Trad Jazz, Vocals, World Fusion |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Rating:

If there was ever an appropriate title for a CD, it’s Bob Moses’ When Elephants Dream Of Music. The music is often spacey, and yet it has a solid bottom end and an abundance of horns, all which serves to remind us of our ponderous friends in the animal kingdom. Composer/arranger Bob Moses isn’t afraid to incorporate humor into the music.

Trevor, the opening cut, starts out with a brief through composed theme before dissolving into a rubato free section with a variety of horns having their say. Out of the mist comes a 9/8 bass line. Aside from occasional interpolations of figures in the brass, most of the musicians freely add color. I heard vibraphone (David Friedman), guitar (Bill Frisell) faded in with a volume knob, and Lyle Mays’ synthesizer. Chris Rogers has the solo on trumpet. Once again, the pattern disintegrates into a rubato free section, this time interrupted by a 5/4 drum groove, joined by a bass ostinato, which marks the beginning of the next tune, Picolo and Lulu. When the brass melody comes in, it’s in an entirely different key. Barry Rogers has the solo on trombone and plunger. For Bob Moses’ drum solo, the time signature switches to 4/4, with Moses soloing over a melodic brass ostinato.

The humorous elements emerge more forcefully with Everybody Knows You When You’re Up And In, a fairly straightforward Dixieland tune in which pairs of horns improvise at the same time, whether it’s alto sax (David Gross) versus trombone or tenor sax versus alto or tenor versus clarinet or, tuba and Jim Pepper’s tenor sax, honking and squealing away in abandon.

The humor continues with Lava Flow, which starts out with a jokey bass riff, but is soon joined by a spacey melody taken by the horns that prominently features an augmented 4th. Surrounding all this are the vocal effects of Nana Vasconcelos, swelling guitar effects from Bill Frisell and goodness knows what else. A 10/8 bass ostinato fades in; this time the melody is doubled by trumpet and voice. Many instruments solo freely around this core element. Meanwhile, the bass ostinato occasionally changes keys to maintain interest. The piece eventually returns to the opening section and the melody gets some lyrics, which have a subliminal effect (the words are hard to make out). Lava Flow ends with some steriling work from Bill Frisell, using a slide on his electric guitar. I’m not a big fan of Frisell improvisational abilities in general, but when he sticks to atmospheric effects, the way he does on When Elephants Dream Of Music, he can be pretty terrific.

Things get downright silly with Happy To Be Here Today, sung accapella by Sheila Jordan. As a straight ballad, it doesn’t really succeed, but as a piece of humor, it’s pretty funny, if you imagine Sheila Jordan as an female elephant.

Let’s face it — if you don’t appreciate humor in jazz, When Elephants Dream Of Music won’t be for you. But if you can get past the jokiness of the conceit, there is a lot to admire. The improvisations from the many musicians are uniformly muscular and inspired, the grooves are plentiful, and Moses’ arrangements are unique.

On the back cover of the CD, Gil Evans is quoted as describing When Elephants Dream Of Music as “A party with a purpose. This album is original, soulful, funny and very special.” That’s about right. Pat Metheny, who was mighty impressed with Bob Moses’ earlier date The Story of Moses, co-produced When Elephants Dream Of Music, but to me, this is an infinitely better record.

To add to the fun, the CD release of When Elephants Dream Of Music features three cuts that weren’t included on the original release, adding almost 20 minutes of music. I’ve got to tell you the titles of two of the tunes: Ripped Van Twinkle and my favorite, Embraceable Jew. (For those politically correct folks out there, Bob Moses is Jewish, so he gets to make jokes like that.)