Octo_Russ

Darryl Brenzel [Pentasphere]

Here's a lovely Jazz disc, i bought this in 2010 on Ebay, attracted by the cover, a very thoughtful almost mono study of Brenzel [photo by Karin Sigman], with coloured filters at the shooting stage i take it, even the 'no admittance' sign could be used in a philosophical way to explain Jazz too!, i just finished listening to it for the second time today, and it's a real grower, for me great Jazz discs are hard to come by, there's probably more 'good' Jazz discs than in any other genre, but excellent or truly great are quite elusive, so it's a joy to find this disc.

Darryl Brenzel is virtually unknown, very little about him on the Internet, i can't even find Jen-Jazz Records, he is 49 years old, and i believe an American, this disc was recorded roughly 12 years ago, there are a couple of copies of this disc on Ebay as i write this, Darryl has worked as a musician in the military, and is now doing some big band project i believe, but he's an accomplished Saxophonist, and i wish he would record some more small combo Jazz discs.

The disc is mainly made up of a Quartet, [sax, guitar, bass, and drums], with an additional piano on three tracks, a mix of Brenzel originals, with some standards, it's Modern Bebop, very tonal, and for what seems an independent record label, very very well recorded indeed, nice sharp and clear, you can hear all the instruments, the drums are recorded in a realistic bass / treble perspective [how well the drums are recorded is always a sign of an excellent record], and just over an hour of music [62 minutes], it's so hard to get yourself heard over the many instrumentalists out there, and with Jazz not a very commercial proposition, there are many talented individuals that are worth hearing, but financially can't cut a record.

On this listening [only my second] i liked tracks 4-6 & 8, i guess it's track 4 'Intornette Access' that i liked the most, a Brenzel original, i like the repetitious bass [Jeff Lopez] vibe at the beginning [0:06-1:12], lasting more than a minute, a nice intro that the sax and guitar [Paul Piper] blow / pluck over, and with a lovely roll of the drums [1:08+ Todd Harrison] the instrumentalists play the short theme [1:12-1:27] which has a nice swing to it, the sax solo afterwards is the best thing about the track [1:27-3:14], lots of intense bebop here, it shows how good Brenzel is, and i must admit on the whole record he's the star of the show, if only his sidemen were of the very highest calibre!, afterwards the guitar has a solo [3:15-6:20], a bit lazy at first, but grows after a while, i find here that the drummer holds back, letting the guitarist show, it would have been better to really push the guitarist more, the bass / drum solo afterwards [6:17-7:22] is a bit tame, starts off with what is probably going to be a bass solo, but the bassist is so quiet, in the end the drummer steps in and does a sort of solo, but it's a bit of a dead bit of the track, i like the way the bassist then re-introduces the original vibe from the beginning [7:26+], and all the instruments return [7:34+], but it's only at the very end that the sax gets into solo bebop mood [7:34+7:44], it's a good finish, but miles too short.

Altogether a very nice record, that i seriously need to get to play some more, it's only after roughly ten times played that i really start to fall in love with a disc, i seriously need to listen to this some more.