Rick Countryman on alto saxophone, Simon Tan on bass, and Christian Bucher on drums cover diverse territory while letting each player stand out in this studio album of collective improvisation, their frequent collaborations allowing them to evoke a strong degree of melodicism among spontaneous interaction, from energetic grooves to ballads to beautiful textural work.
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2019 Country: UK Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold 3 Panels Recorded at Strawberry Jams Studio in Quezon City, Philippines, on July 20th, 2019, by Alvin Cornista.
"Empathy is a title that sums up the logic of Rick Countryman , his philosophy of music. It is both the title of the album and its first piece. We find there the gift to the other and the gratitude to receive. It is a striking piece, starting with a song of intense lyricism, then leaving plenty of room for its partners, receiving from them bright, chiseled shards, before finding them with this mixture of osmosis and identity, each bringing its own flavor. The quality of the sound recording underlines this inaugural pleasure.
Temperance seems to me to be antiphrase. After a rather charming theme, the discourse reveals itself to be tortuous, in a stream with almost continuous inspiration, in the most beautiful tradition of free music. We find there the important space left to the infernal duo of bass-drums before the final merger.
It is that for Rick Countryman, his partners, it is essential. With him, you have the choice of drummer: Sabu Toyozumi or Christian Bucher . The first is a real living legend. The second has built a reputation for excellence among avant-garde drummers.
In this album, it is the latter who officiates with the sticks. He brought his bearings, his grapeshot, his gallops, his strikes which evoke memories, renew them and soon move away from them, and others still. He puts them together in real speeches. They double, sometimes mimic, become entangled, shake up that of the instrumentalist with whom he dialogues, or clear spaces. This is how in the third play, "Outside The Context", Christian Bucher immediately takes the line, then deploys with Rick Countryman then with Simon Tan (b) his incisive sentences, his fiery, almost epic tales. On this occasion, the bass player is revealed as a fearsome debater, tireless, expressing himself with strength, spread it out at his fingertips.
This bass-drums dialogue is also found in the next play, "The Snowman", this time on a slow, gently intimate rhythm, the caresses of the cymbals and the secrets of the bass.It is also this same dialogue that opens "The Struggle for the Relevance", dark, sober, joined by a viola with acute desperation. Lacerations to the bow, a chameleon battery melting into the other two speeches or tirelessly hammering the space. A great springboard for sensual, raucous, scratchy and poignant singing on the sax. Perhaps the piece that tickles our neurons the most.
This low-battery tandem is often at work for the opening of the different rooms, as if Rick Countryman wanted to take advantage of the beautiful complementarity of Simon Tan and Christian Bucher, either to install a soundscape in which his song can flourish, either to leave a large place for this "solo dialogue". And this alchemy works remarkably. This is how "Gray Inside Blues" brilliantly closes this particularly successful album.
The quality of the two drummers already mentioned and the numerous recordings with each of them allow Rick Countryman to be located in the profession and with certain columnists (see Wikipedia ). He acquired the reputation of a leading musician, even if he "went into exile" in Manila and is far from the concert circuits. We recognize him as a powerful and fluid lyricism, totally immersed in the adventure of the free he knows how to revive. He also seems to be more and more involved in the complexification of sound matters, of color iridescence. We can observe this trajectory between the first pieces, "Empathy" and "Temperance" with a large and powerful song, pieces that sometimes come close to the bop, its verve, its rhythms, and the last tracks with stratified granulations. Chance of album organization? Maybe, maybe not.
There is a joy to play which is released without hindrance, and an unmixed pleasure to find "brothers in crimes" with whom everything is possible."-Guy Sitruk, Citizen Jazz (translated by Google)