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Jazz Articles » Play This! » Kenny Wheeler: Smatter
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data-original-title=”” title=””>Kenny Wheeler, offers the chance to hear several grandmasters of jazz concoct high-energy music together. For Wheeler’s debut on ECM Records, Gnu High (ECM, 1976), he gathered the creative forces of
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data-original-title=”” title=””>Keith Jarrett,
Jack DeJohnette
drums
b.1942
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data-original-title=”” title=””>Jack DeJohnette and
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data-original-title=”” title=””>Dave Holland on the album’s three tracks. Gnu High would quickly be deemed a classic.
Wheeler displays a tone that is equal parts warm and penetrating. His solos are uber-musical, transcending lyrical lines to create pure ambience. Holland and DeJohnette were one of the earliest rhythm bottom-ends to balance free jazz’s use of liberated (cross-chord) phrasing with the confident pulse of classic swing. We get the added treat of hearing Jarrett lend his intense comping and soloing to a trumpet-led quartet format, in one of his final recordings as a sideman.
If anyone should ask you “what s’matter?” then you can enthusiastically point them to this track.
Contact Scott Lichtman on All About Jazz.
Jazz/fusion keyboardist & autograph collector in Stamford CT.
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