HENRY THREADGILL

EVERYBODY'S MOUTH'S A BOOK

  1/  Platinum Inside Straight                   (Threadgill)                  7.10
  2/  Don't Turn Around                          (Threadgill)                  7.32
  3/  Biggest Crumb                              (Threadgill)                  4.42
  4/  Burnt Til Recognition                      (Threadgill)                  7.35
  5/  Where Coconuts Fall                        (Threadgill)                  6.32
  6/  Pink Water Pink Airplane                   (Threadgill)                  3.42
  7/  Shake It Off                               (Threadgill)                  5.07
  8/  What To Do, What To Do                     (Threadgill)                  8.08

          Recorded at Orange Music Sound Studio, West Orange, New Jersey on
            February 25,26 and 27, 2001
          Mixed at Orange Music Sound Studios by Bill Laswell, March 28 and 29, 2001
          Engineered by Robert Musso
          Assistant engineer James Dellatacoma
          Produced by Henry Threadgill
          Executive Producer: Seth Rosner
          Mastered at at Turtle Tone Studios, New York by Michael Fossenkemper
          Second Engineer: Alex Theoret
Henry Threadgill: alto saxophone, flute; Bryan Carrott: vibraphone, marimba; Brandon Ross: electric and acoustic guitar; Stomu Takeishi: electric bass, acoustic bass guitar; Dafnis Prieto: trap drums.

          2001 - Pi Recordings (USA), PI 01 (CD)

REVIEWS :

I, to, witnessed the fire-and-brimstone glory of Make a Move's 1999 North Sea Jazz performance. It floored me, then varnished and then waxed and mopped. No, no, it didn't floor me. It tore the floor right off. I can still see them with crow-bars up their on the stage, ripping up boards and tossing them into the audience. It probably didn't help matters any that I was the companion mentioned in a previous review. We were wide open for this kind of balls-out-boom.

Comparing that live performance with their new album isn't very hard. Their sound has changed (in contrast to Where's My Cup?, as well as the live show), becoming more precise, less roilingly overwhelming.

This has to do largely with Dafnis Prieto, Make a Move's new drummer. Cause he's Cuban. Cuban jazzer's almost always have vicious chops, but they rarely utilize the kind of rolling tidal wave effect pioneered by Elvin Jones and then further developed by Jack Dejohnette. The effect they have on the music is more...groin. Groin, mixed with the kind of linear precision that fusion drummers are famous for. It gives the music a different flavor.

And the vibist/marimba player also greatly changes their sound (from the accordian/harmonium). Bonging washes of sound meld with Stomu's electic bass, which thromble's like the main vein of a whale weener, pushing Henry and Brandon Ross's voices leaping and soaring, like aggrieved sparrows looking for a fight in the clouds.

All I'm saying is, it's a different beast from Where's Your Cup?, but me thinks it better than that album (which I do like). However, I must reiterate that it didn't hold a candle to that live show.

Matt Fink (courtesy of the Amazon.com website)

..................................................

Miserably tripping through a wasteland of drunken yuppies near tears from frustration and confusion brought on by no less than 2 grams each of store-bought mushrooms, my companion and I searched out a quiet place with perhaps some clean, fresh air. If that sentance is a bit florid or a bit jumbled, it is just my poor boy's attempt at doing justice to one of the worst days of my life. At the North Sea Jazz Festival in Den Haag, Holland I had a trancsendent experience. And I have this band to thank. Nobody conceives rhythm or harmony like Henry Threadgill. His music can be pestering agitating, taking you where you don't want to go. But since I was already where I REALLY did not want to be, this was not a problem. Just rocking, ripping, moving, emoting, grooving, or sweetly seducing would not have done. What this version of Make-a-move did was more. It was like it was beyond rationality the emotions in this music. It satisfied intellectually, yet was not intellectual. Damn that was a great show. I've been waiting for this album ever since. So... why only 4 stars? Overspecualtion pure and simple. If everyone else had set the bar so high it would take a miracle to get a 5. Henry Threadgill has already produced one miracle. This ain't no miracle, just a great album.

4 stars out of 5

Gordon Smith (courtesy of the Amazon.com website)