Throughout the listening of “Enrapture”, Ken Peplowski demonstrates all his versatility and confidence both on clarinet and tenor saxophone. He opens with the Dixieland colors of “The Flaming Sword”, a Duke Ellington composition, and finishes with “Willow Tree”, a traditional blues composed by Fats Waller. Thus, as you can imagine there’s a lot of mainstream jazz here, but some nice surprises in the middle. Peplowski and his quartet stroll along sweet landscapes, showing a clear tendency to mellow tones with ballads directly connected to the movies such as “An Affair to Remember”; a love theme from Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”; “Cheer Up Charlie”, which was performed by Diana Sowie in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”; and “I’ll Follow My Secret Heart” composed by the eccentric Noel Coward for his musical “Conversation Piece” and played on sax with…show more content… Eric Revis is an unpredictable bassist who played with Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts, Branford Marsalis, Kurt Rosenwinkel, and recently with the pianist Aruan Ortiz and the trumpeter Avishai Cohen.
In “Crowded Solitudes”, his fifth album, he leads a fantastic trio composed of the hyper-creative pianist Kris Davis and the focused drummer Gerald Cleaver.
The album opens with “Arcane 17”, a tune where there’s a lot going on. We can indulge in the non-linear yet steady groove lay down by Revis while Cleaver threats to catch fire on several occasions. Davis bestows her strong influence, counterpointing with sobs and chords imbued in tension.
In “Bontah”, the voice of an infant, presumably Revis’ son, can be heard and the rhythmic cadence of his words was the inspiration for this spellbinding, motivic tune.
A meek atmosphere envelops Paul Motian’s “Victoria”. It starts with a bass intro and showcases Cleaver’s brushwork while Davis flourishes with sparse touches that never feel
