Published: July 7, 2006

JASON RIGBY
                                                                                                                
Translucent Space Fresh Sound                                                                                                                                          


An arresting debut from multi-reedman Rigby offers a personal slant on Coltrane on tenor, with a less-obvious stylistic debt on alto and soprano; he also plays bass clarinet and bamboo flute. But as a composer and arranger his originality is even more striking. In settings ranging from the minimal of trio and quartet, or expanded to use woodwind trios and cello, he's created a distinctive, if eclectic, synthesis of Wayne Shorter and Ornette Coleman, with echoes of Paul Motian's trio. Though he also acknowledges Philip Glass, Mahler, Bartok and Shostakovich as influences on an album packed with enough diversity and ideas to sustain several more, the results are less forbiding and more homogeneous than this suggests. He's well served in performance by Mike Holober (piano/Fender Rhodes), Cameron Brown (bass), and Mark Ferber (drums). One to watch.

www.freshsoundrecords.com  Ray Comiskey