Stand Up!
(Analogoue Tone Factory)
8/10
When I first played this, I did a double-take; checked no one had slyly replaced my amp and speakers. No. So then I just bathed in the analogue sound: analogue at every stage of the album’s creation, including meticulous mastering to high-quality vinyl. Released on New York’s Analogue Tone Factory label, Stand Up! brings each sound to life with rare fidelity.
Jerome Sabbagh plays airy tenor saxophone, and you hear every gradation in the grain of his sound. Joe Martin’s bass is warm and full, and Ben Monder’s guitar brings the stratosphere tumbling down to earth. Most startling is the replication of Nasheet Waits’ drums: the cymbals sing, and all his nuances of touch surround you.
One track stands apart from the rest, however. Mosh Pit explodes from the speakers like you’ve just opened the door of a rowdy venue. The tenor and guitar crowd-surf in unison across the seething tumult churned up by the rhythm section, and then diverge into a shouted dialogue. It’s thrilling, hair-raising stuff, all over in less than three-and-a-half minutes.
Without this track, the whole album would change. Mosh Pit contextualises it all, so you know that such primality is an option for Sabbagh and his band, as well as more cruising jazz.
They begin in the slow, soulful, 12/8 mood of Long Jack, dedicated to Ray Charles and co-producer Pete Rende. Immediately in play is the startling contrast between the warmth of the tenor and the star-spangled psychedelics of Monder’s guitar. Michelle’s Song is a waltz that seems to wave in the breeze set up by Martin and Waits, with the cymbal overtones having singular clarity. Sabbagh’s playing is breathy and relaxed, his lines building a solo of elegant logic.
Lunar Cycle is dedicated to the great saxophonist Sam Rivers. Like his music, it has the odd rhythmic puzzle built into the bouncy swing, and Waits solos with verve and authority. The simple, wistful melody of The Break Song (dedicated to Stevie Wonder) rides on a back-beat, over which the saxophone and fuzzy guitar spar, and you wouldn’t be surprised if Wonder’s harmonica suddenly broke from the undergrowth.
High Falls is a blithe bossa nova, the saxophone’s melody draped across the perfectly recorded rim-clicks of the groove, and Monder toys with space, thereby helping further aerate the music. Vanguard is dedicated to the late doyen of drummers, band-leaders and composers, Paul Motian, with Sabbagh’s melody carrying something of Motian’s beloved combination of angularity and impressionism, and Monder soloing with a charming blend of abstraction and lyricism. The finale, the wonderfully titled Unbowed (dedicated to octogenarian pianist Kenny Barron), is slow, but has too much spine to be called a ballad. In fact, it almost bristles with defiance, and leaves you feeling just a little more steeled for the year ahead.