Tom Varner - Second Communion

[Clay Fink]

This is one of my favorite purchases so far this year. It's from 2001 and features Tom on French horn with Tony Malaby on tenor, Cameron Brown on bass and Matt Wilson on drums. Guitarist Pete McCann and trumpeter Dave Ballou round the group out to a quintet and sextet on some tracks.

The title refers to Don Cherry's classic Blue Note recording "Complete Communion" which featured Gato Barbieri, Henry Grimes and Ed Blackwell. Varner's group covers the entire "Complete Communion" suite and "Elephantasy" from that recording. They also cover "Cherryco" from the Cherry/Coltrane LP "The Avant Guard". The remaining tracks are all by Tom.

They do more than justice to the Cherry compositions and the original compositions are your typical intricate and interesting Tom Varner compositions. Malaby (sounding like Dewey Redman at times), Brown and Wilson (echoing Ed Blackwell at times) all shine. Varner's playing puts him at the very front of improvising French horn players today (Mark Taylor - you are too!). He get's such a nice jazz sound out of a instrument that I've been told is horribly difficult. It almost sounds like, but not quite like, a bone at times.

Get this if you don't already have it. Hell, everything I've heard under Tom's name is great - "Long Night, Big Day" was one of my favorite CDs of the 90s. Speaking of that one, where's Ed Jackson these days - a great alto player that played with Tom a lot?

[Pete C]

Excellent album, and I've seen some of the music performed live twice. It's available on EMusic, btw.

I also highly recommend Swimming, which focuses on Tom's compositions, and features Steve Wilson, Mark Feldman, Malaby, Ballou, McCann, Cameron Brown & Tom Rainey.

Omnitone is one of those labels I can always trust for interesting releases, its owner sharing my preference for compositionally-oriented music.

[Clay Fink]

Yes. There's nice recordings by Ron Horton, Michael Bisio and Marty Ehrlich on Omnitone. What other's have you heard?

[Sergio Zamora]

Haven't heard this one, but love "Swimming". Also from Omnitone, top of my head, Baikida Carroll's "Marionettes on a Highwire", Cuong Vu's "Bound", and Ron Horton's "Genus Envy".

[relyles]

This was one of favorite releases from 2002.

[Pete C]

Originally posted by Sergio Zamora
Haven't heard this one, but love "Swimming". Also from Omnitone, top of my head, Baikida Carroll's "Marionettes on a Highwire", Cuong Vu's "Bound", and Ron Horton's "Genus Envy".

I haven't heard Horton's yet, but I've downloaded it. The rest are superb.

Also recommended:

Marty Ehrlich - Malinke's Dance (his Travelers Tales band)
Jim McNeeley Tentet - Group Therapy

I want to hear the Oscar Noriega, since I saw him for the first time last week and was impressed.

[mtaylorjazz]

Originally posted by Clay Fink
Varner's playing puts him at the very front of improvising French horn players today (Mark Taylor - you are too!). He get's such a nice jazz sound out of a instrument that I've been told is horribly difficult. It almost sounds like, but not quite like, a bone at times.

Get this if you don't already have it. Hell, everything I've heard under Tom's name is great - "Long Night, Big Day" was one of my favorite CDs of the 90s. Speaking of that one, where's Ed Jackson these days - a great alto player that played with Tom a lot?

thanks clay!

i told tom once that since he is one of the best known and most prolific of our small group (jazz horn players, that is), when i get a review about one of my projects it's often mostly about him...

i don't have second communion yet, but i really like Swimming and i LOVE that trio album he did (Covert Action?) a while ago.

mt

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