A Life In A Day
(lionsharecords)
10/10
It was a superhuman effort. David Ades was dying of lung cancer when he recorded this album. He knew it would be his last and he made it his best. Who knows what monstrous willpower was required to play the alto saxophone for the five-hour session, the results of which are now released posthumously. Ades’ illness could not knock the extraordinary singing vitality out of his playing, however. If his sound is sometimes less robust than previously, it still carries a phenomenal life force, while his lines jumble exuberance and sadness together into one mile-wide emotion.
Compared with his previous A Glorious Uncertainty album the compositions are more open with more air around the notes, so that the effect is very slightly less vigorous; slightly more ethereal. As with A Glorious Uncertainty Ades went to New York (from Byron Bay) to record with the stellar band of tenor saxophonist Tony Mallaby, bassist Mark Helias and drummer Gerald Cleaver. They rose to the occasion magnificently.