Chris Potter: There is a Tide

Rating: ★★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

Chris Potter (ts, ss, cl, bcl, f, p, ky, g,

Label:

Edition

February/2021

Media Format:

CD, LP, DL

Catalogue Number:

EDN1168

RecordDate:

May-July 2020

In just about any band he's played in over the past 25 years, Chris Potter has regularly sounded as if there are several musicians swapping ideas in real time in his head, but in this lockdown-motivated solo venture he pushes that impression to the max, playing saxes, woodwinds, keyboards, guitars, electric and acoustic basses, and percussion. Potter has said that this completely home-cooked adventure ‘grew out of a wish to continue creating at a time when most of the usual channels of musical expression were unavailable. I offer it as a musical perspective on the issues we are facing’ - like isolation, social tensions, and the planet's future. ‘I Had A Dream’, composed in the wake of George Floyd's death, is a gently dancing Afro-funky theme over a bass guitar vamp, with a contrapuntal structure that sounds lyrically natural in Potter's hands, and a tenor solo with a Rollins-like calypso lilt -only an eerily multiphonic finale suggests underlying tensions in this dream. Some edgy bass clarinet on the lilting and then riffy ‘Like A Memory’ echoes Bennie Maupin's presence on Bitches Brew, the chiming, percussive ‘The Mother of Waters’ is Yoruba-inspired, the gospelly ‘Drop Your Anchor Down’ is a standout of the session, while ‘Rest Your Head’ and ‘As The Moon Ascends’ foreground Potter's tonal eloquence on saxophones and flute. Overdubbed solo projects often have trouble capturing the feint-and-weave immediacy of a real improvisers' ensemble, but Chris Potter's multiple skills and musicality come close on this lovingly-crafted venture.

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