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Review: Gilfema + 2

ObliqSound (2009)
By JON GARELICK  |  January 6, 2009
3.5 3.5 Stars

090108_gilfema_main
With rising jazz-guitar star Lionel Loueke in the mix, Gilfema are shaping up to be a jazz supergroup. On their second disc, you can hear why: just about every piece is drawn with the clear outlines of simple folkloric melodies (often sung wordlessly by the Benin-born Loueke) and dancelike rhythms. Yet within those outlines they build dense weaves of contrapuntal lines and driving cross-rhythms. The "+ 2" in this case are the B-flat clarinet of Anat Cohen and the bass clarinet of former Charlie Hunter Trio reedman John Ellis, both providing dark-hued ensemble color and provocative solos. The opener, "Twins," is emblematic: soft acoustic strumming and brushes introduce a light African-flavored melody with responding clarinet riffs. The form builds with each repetition, Loueke's tone shifting to a more electric-jazz bite, his steel-drum-like chorusing effect, and finally some whiplash "out" harmonies amid the collective din. Loueke, bassist Massimo Biolcati, and drummer Ferenc Nemeth all contribute compositions, and the result is more than jazzy Afropop (Biolcati's "One Mind's Eye" is like a mini concerto for two clarinets) — a durable, varied, distinct ensemble identity.

GILFEMA + 2 with John Ellis and Joris Roelofs | Regattabar, Charles Hotel, 1 Bennett St, Cambridge | January 14 at 7:30 pm | 617.395.7757

Related: Review: Mallu Magalhães, Review: Have Nots, Serf City U.S.A., Review: Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion, More more >
  Topics: CD Reviews , Lionel Loueke, Lionel Loueke, Anat Cohen,  More more >
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ARTICLES BY JON GARELICK
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  •   GETTING THE STORY  |  December 01, 2009
    Full-length written histories of jazz can be a slog. Especially since "the story of jazz" (as critic Marshall Stearns titled his 1956 tome) only gets longer and more complicated. Personally, on these prose-narrative trips along the New Orleans–New York axis of musical development, I usually bog down somewhere outside Chicago.
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  •   LIVE AND ON RECORD  |  November 04, 2009
    To call Darius Jones’s music avant-garde seems almost beside the point. In its way, it’s older than old — it’s ancient.

 See all articles by: JON GARELICK

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