How tender No Subject out today begins. But East Axis are hardly a cry-in-your-beer singalong lounge band. And yet the opener's instrumentalism and sheer personality hits you in your soul pretty straight away. Matthew Shipp skips the lead line of 'I Like It Very Much' along in sprightly fashion as the remarkable Scott Robinson during the course of the album playing not only tenor sax but also alto clarinet, tarogato, trumpet and slide cornet continues his dialogue this time gruffer. Drummer Gerald Cleaver is audacious enough to swing the tune and yet that works.
When Robinson switches to cornet on the very brief plea 'Somebody Just Go In, Please' the whole thing changes. But it's over before it begins which is a pity. 'I Take That Back Later' is also very concise. But more often than not there is ample opportunity for the quartet to fully express themselves beyond pithy statement.
If anyone East Axis is double bassist Kevin Ray's band and his Charlie Haden-esque solo at the beginning of 'Sometime Tomorrow' is an album highlight. Shipp is magnificent throughout and a welcome change from too many solo albums he has been heard on in recent years some of which work beautifully some more ho-hum.
East Axis l-r: Gerald Cleaver, Scott Robinson, Matthew Shipp, Kevin Ray
A departure for Christian McBride's Brother Mister label dealing with a hard core improvising unit who take no prisoners and bravo for that decision given how excellent the album is. I'm thinking of the words of Emily Dickinson in a famous poem speaking of hope ''Yet - never - in Extremity, It asked a crumb - of me.''
To wrap the final things to listen out for are Robinson's tour de force of scrabbling intensity on 'Decisions Have Already Been Made' and again that sense of tenderness on the formidable 'Metal Sounds'. The title track, the longest piece, 'No Subject' with its bee-like flight and up, up and away quality to it is a complete surprise. East Axis set the bar teeteringly high for avant gardists everywhere on this generously fertile evidence. The words of Emily Dickinson again spring to mind:
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all
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