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Reviews of artist releases: cd's, books, magazines, &c.
Dennis Warren's Full Metal Revolutionary Jazz Ensemble
Horizon Event
(Drimala)
review by Eyal Hareuveni
2003-05-25
Boston-based drummer Dennis Warren presents in this disc the current incarnation of the
free-psychedelic-jam collective he has led since the late 1980s with three long free-form
improvisations over 75 minutes. The current version of Full Metal Revolutionary Jazz
Ensemble lacks such strong personalities as saxophonists Glenn Spearman and Marco
Eneidi or trumpeter Raphe Malik, all of whom played with previous versions of the
ensemble. This disc also suffers from the poor sound of the live recording from two
nights in 2001 and 2002 at the Skybar club in Sommerville, MA, with Warren as
engineer.
The impressive name of this ensemble might be misleading. You will not find in this
version of this ensemble any metallic blowouts a la Sonny Sharrock, nor any complex
harmolidics riffs of Ornette Coleman's Prime-Time band or the funk outbursts of Ronald
Shannon Jackson's Decoding Society. The FMRJE's improvised jams here reflect a
naive nostalgia for the electric bands of Miles Davis of the late '60s and early '70s, but
there is a big difference between Davis' bands and this ensemble. Warren does not
exercise his leadership on the ensemble's members, the improvisations are not
focused and last too long and there are too many times when the playing of the guitarist
Chris Florio and alto saxophonist Andy Voelker is shadowed by the constant energetic
drumming of Warren himself and Albey Balgochian's throbbing electric bass.
Frank Rubolino promise in the liner notes that this disc "is hypnotic and demanding,
pulling one along into an unknown void where an unavoidable stimulus engulfs the senses
and drugs the mind. Sorry, the only thing reminiscent of any hallucigenic experience
here are the voice samples of LSD guru Timothy Leary (Martin Luther King Jr. is also
heard). The playing of the FMRJE members is quite enthusiastic and sincere, no doubt,
but we might expect more from a former student of such great players as Milford Graves
and Bill Dixon.
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