Chris Lightcap - Big Mouth

[Clay Fink]

Chris on bass with Tony Malaby and Bill McHenry on tenors and Gerald Cleaver on drums. It's a 2002 release on Fresh Sounds New Talent.

A fantastic group sound - the two tenors sound great together and Lightcap and Cleaver are a great rhythm section. I've seen this same bassist and drummer backing up Joe Morris and Matt Maneri, and this recording is a little less "out" than I expected. It's more of a Free-Bop recording than what Morris is usually up to. The compositions are pretty good - all originals except for a great cover of the Beatles "Dig a Pony". At times this group reminds me of the Paul Motian quintet of the 80s with Jim Pepper and Joe Lovano playing dual tenors. Malaby has a hint of Pepper's sound, so maybe that's it. McHenry is a new name to me. He also has a CD out on FSNT with Motan and Ben Monder.

Anyhow, this one's a keeper too.

[Dig Gonsalves]

I've not heard much about Malaby. What's his concept and sound? Tone?
He seems to be appearing in the right places. I'm about ready to check him out. Any recommendations?

I know Lightcap from Whit Dickey & Rob Brown's recordings. Very fond of the 'agit-walk' a al William Parker. A promising player.

[Nate Dorward]

Malaby does seem to be popping up all over the place lately. THe one disc I have with him on it is Disambiguation by the Karayorgis/Maneri quintet on Leo. It's highly recommended (see my writeup in this month's Paris Transatlantic online) & Malaby sounds very good on it.

[Captain Hate]

I saw Chris with the Whit Dickey Trio at the '99 Vision fest and he was very good. As was Dickey; I wanted to like Rob Brown more than I did. His tone was great but he wasn't playing with the abandon that he subsequently did on O'Neal's Porch.

[Clay Fink]

Malaby is very good. He has some hint of Dewey Redman in his tone and he's found a lot of oportunities to play in NY. He's in Mark Helias' Open Loose trio and he has also recorded a nice CD on Arabesque called "Sanbino" with Marc Ducret, Michael Formenak adn Tom Rainey. I've seen him play with Marty Ehrlich and he plays on Marty's "Malinke’s Dance”.

Also, check out the Varner cd that I started the thread on...

Here's Malaby's website:

http://www.tonymalaby.com/

[Nate Dorward]

Hey, I see that Malaby's website mentions that he's on a 2001 Yosuke Yamashita disc, Field of Grooves--nice to see: Y.Y.'s a favourite of mine & he seems to have a knack for picking interesting sidemen.

[Nathaniel Catchpole]

Saw Malaby at the Internet Cafe a couple of years ago with Tim Berne and George and Ed Schuller. Great gig, both he and Berne played really well.

[Captain Hate]

I finally picked this up recently. Could somebody tell me which tenor is Malaby and which is McHenry??