Ellery Eskelin - Ten

[crawjo]

Ellery Eskelin - Tenor Saxophone
Andrea Parkins - Piano, Accordion, Sampler
Jim Black - Drums and Percussion
Marc Ribot - Electric Guitar
Melvin Gibbs - Electric Bass
Jessica Constable - Voice

A big thumbs-up on this one. For those of you who like Ellery's music, I recommend picking it up.

There is a tremendous amount of variety in these tunes...the music is presented in a lot of different settings. The trio, duos between Ellery and Constable, Ellery and Black, all six musicians playing together. The album, taken as a whole, (12 tracks) explores a lot of different areas, and contains far more than I can convey in this post. I will share a few impressions:

I thought Constable's voicings, which seem wordless but often, at the same time, suggest or imply words (I could hear pieces of articulate syllables in "Tell Me When", for instance) worked very well with this music. I thought her voice really added another dimension to the sound, bringing out some of the more emotional and haunting motifs that are layered in the band's improvisations.

I also really enjoyed Andrea Parkins on this one. I've always liked her music, but to my ears on this one she really shines: To cite just one example, her use of static on "Anyone's Guess" really gave the music even more texture. As usual, she and Black seem to feed off one another very well, together with Ellery they can really hit their own unique groove.

Finally, a word about Ellery's playing. One feature of his work that has always struck me has been the searching quality of his solos. When listening to him, I often have the feeling of following a human thought process: contemplative, curious, plaintive, sometimes going off on a tangent, then returning, gathering strength, fading, reemerging. Truly beautiful to watch how it unfolds!

There's a lot more I could say, but I need to listen to this music more. I thought it was a great decision to present the music in lots of different formats, and Ribot and Gibbs both make their unique contributions, which I haven't really gone into here, but maybe somebody else listening to the disc can. I just wanted to share my thoughts, such as they are.

[John L]

Ellery is one of the few active jazz artists for whom I buy every new disc even before I hear it. He has never let me down.

[crawjo]

It's best-of-three, now, stoner. You aren't even a little bit nervous?