Updating his Sabino quartet of Michael Formanek on double bass and Tom Rainey on drums with guitarist Ben Monder taking Marc Ducret's role, saxophonist Tony Malaby, here on tenor & soprano, charges forward with both modern, angular NY jazz and with experimental free improv both light and dark, in this captivating studio album of six Malaby compositions and one collective improv.
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2022 Country: USA Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold Recorded at Samurai Hotel Studios, in Astoria, New York, on June 24th, 2021.
"Called "one of New York City's most in-demand tenor saxophonists [and] one of the most distinctive artists of his time" by All About Jazz, Tony Malaby is an adventurous and acclaimed saxophonist whose work bridges the realms of post-bop and free improvisation. Originally from Arizona, he was based in New York from 1995 until 2021, when he relocated to Boston and joined the faculty of Berklee College of Music.
Malaby has been a member of such notable jazz groups as Charlie Haden's Liberation Orchestra, Paul Motian's Electric Bebop Band, Mark Helias' Open Loose, Fred Hersch's quintet and bands led by Mario Pavone, Tim Berne, Chris Lightcap, Kris Davis, Angelica Sanchez, Michael Attias and Marty Ehrlich. He leads several projects of his own including: Apparitions, the Tony Malaby Cello Trio, the quartet Paloma Recio and the trio Tamarindo."-Pyroclastic
"Veteran of Paul Motian's Electric Bebop Band, Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra and many of Kris Davis' intriguing forays, saxophonist Tony Malaby is by far no stranger to the other side of the music where paradigms slip from measure to measure, not to note. So The Cave of Winds, Malaby's dust-up with his electric quartet Sabino, follows a grandly familiar arc but sounds like nothing before it, and quite possibly like nothing that will come after it.
Potent participants in the active dance, bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Tom Rainey resume their inquisitive duties from their 2000 debut, Sabino (Arabesque) while guitarist Ben Monder replaces Marc Ducret. It's a sonic sleigh ride. Rough edges fray the smooth bopsody of "Corinthian Leather," a loosely interpreted mash borne of Dizzy Gillespie's 1944 dancehall rave, "Woody 'n You." The tune might start boppy enough but soon the winds change into a Monder charged rout- an interesting turn of events.
"Recrudescence" hints, whispers, moans. It harkens past and present. It conducts itself like lava down a mountain. Monder again seems to take charge but in this open environment, it's anyone's guess and anyone's stance to take. So they challenge each other. Malaby calling out above the maelstrom, while Formanek and Rainey throw their muscle into creating a bigger storm, which Monder darkens with smears of rock guitar chatter on the (intentional? unintentional?) homage to Neil Young and Crazy Horse "Scratch the Horse."
The inspiration for all the music on The Cave of Winds- "Insect Ward," the title track, "Life Coach (for Helias)" and ("Just Me, Just Me")-comes from pop-up pandemic jam sessions that Malaby led under a turnpike overpass near his home in Jersey, and it sure as hell sounds like it. The city's prevailing ill-winds howling beneath the underpass are met and countered by the power of each individual act upon the idea that unity equals strength. And from strength comes resistance. And from resistance new things emerge."-Mike Jurkovic, All About Jazz