(Devin Phillips, tenor & soprano sax; Andrew Oliver, piano & Fender Rhodes; Eric Gruber, bass; Mark DiFlorio, drums & percussion, Guest trumpet: Maurice Brown (Tracks 8 & 9)
A number of different jazz artists and bands have been producing concept albums lately with a particular slant – often of a spiritual nature. Saxist Phillips and his band – which he calls New Orleans Straight Ahead – all moved to Portland, Oregon after Hurricane Katrina. They have become a vital part of the Portland jazz scene, and one year after Katrina New Orleans native Phillips recorded this album, with acclaimed jazz pianist Darrell Grant – also creator of a very spiritual recent album – as producer. Devin and his band were one of six bands chosen nationwide in a recent series of auditions for the Rhythm Road: American Music Abroad program to share American music as a vehicle of communication with other countries.
The well-balanced 12-track CD is an Enhanced CD, presenting in QuickTime a complete music video of the title selection, Wade in the Water. It was shot partly at the recording session at Kung Fu Bakery Recording in Portland and partly at the city’s top jazz venue – the new Jimmy Mak’s Jazz Club. At the end of the video, Devin is quoted as observing that due to Katrina, “that song took on a meaning of its own.” I guess so! The cover photo says it all. The arrangement sets off with a very insistent and urgent repeated piano riff against which the familiar tune of the spiritual is heard. Most of the tracks are by Phillips or members of the band, but there is a Sidney Bechet number: My Woman’s Blues, and a standard: Just One of Those Things. The closing Big Chief begins with a Professor Longhair-style piano riff that says New Orleans all over it. This band has real soul and fully deserves the attention it is beginning to achieve.
TrackList: Cape Verde, Wade in the Water, Steepe’s Mode, My Woman’s Blues, Destine’s Dream, To Alpha with Love, The Great M.T., Just One of Those Things, Frenchmen Street Strut, Slow Blues, The Ballad of Chat Kincaid, Big Chief, Video of Wade in the Water.
– John Henry
