Recorded remotely over wi-fi, the sound quality incidentally is fine although the bass could be a little louder, these soprano saxophone and double bass duets thrive on intimacy and open dialogue. One of the world's greatest soprano saxophonists Bloom's beautiful tone and bluesy directness are arresting and refreshing. Helias known for his work with Dewey Redman, Anthony Braxton and Marilyn Crispell has worked extensively with Bloom over the years on such records as Wild Lines: Improvising Emily Dickinson and Early Americans.
Some jazz albums are prose others are poetry if you make the comparison with literary forms. And certainly Some Kind of Tomorrow is more poetry, each improvisation a stanza, part of a whole that makes sense. The steady building up of ideas and motifs, often fleeting and slippery, but always concise, contribute both mood and a certain striking momentousness.
Party music seems wrong at the moment and certainly this non-party music is more for meditation and retreat, I suppose a perfect Lockdown record in this time of withdrawal from an active life. Listening it is extraordinary how many different paths free improvisers can take: Bloom's is more narrative than some and here she does not really distort or scramble texture and timbre as some kindred spirits might, instead her saxophone stories are very exploratory and nomadic through intervallic leaps and the truant dissonances she finds that make sense illuminated by the free wheeling bustle and beat of the bass below. Helias shows great empathy, his sound carrying on the Charlie Haden innovations explored on early Ornette Coleman records with great spirit and passion. A lovely record. SG. Out today
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