Ernie Watts [Reaching Up]
A Jazz disc roughly appears in my Blog once a month, that's a shame as it's such an incredible genre of music, i find it very hard to increase my Jazz discs, there's so much that is just ordinary out there, where are all the great Jazz discs hiding?, so it was very refreshing to play this disc today, in a way it's like a long lost friend i meet only every 2 years or so [16th February 2010], there's a tendency to 'sweeten' Jazz so that the un-initiated might like it, so called 'Smooth Jazz' with R&B beats to it, and drum machines / synthesizers, i must admit that i find Ernie Watts rather slick and funky in a way, somewhat reminiscent of this very type of Jazz i disdain, the difference is that Watts has real men as Sidesmen, creating real musical sparks, no mere background beats here, Mulgrew Miller and Jack DeJohnette are especially hard players, pushing the boundaries, and pushing their fellow players to the very limit, it's a tight and excellent Quartet, and Arturo Sandoval on two tracks is dynamite as well.
Ernie Watts is an American Saxophonist, he's now 66 years old, he recorded this disc in 1993, the front cover [photo by Janette Beckman] is only half covered by a oddly cropped photograph, a monotone shot couched in a blue tint, i saw this at my Library back in 1994, and hired it out, liked it enough to get my own copy, it's one of the best Jazz discs i own.
The 3 tracks i liked the best were 2 & 5-6, the best track was again track 6 'Inward Glance', it starts with one of the most delicious short drum rolls ever, with an irresistible snap at the end, not even up to 1 second, Jack DeJohnette has that chug a chug a chug drum vibe throughout, Ernie Watts comes in with such a smooth delivery, he's a 'Soul' Saxophonist, he introduces the opening theme, [0:15-1:27], and what a superb tune it is, it's so good that i thought it was some regular standard, but it's his own tune, the Pianist Mulgrew Miller takes the first solo [1:29-2:40], his opening notes are inspired, he makes it sort of die in another key, tremendous, towards the end of his solo, Jack DeJohnette starts playing around with his chug a chug, speeding it up and going out of sync a bit, but weirdly it works, Watts gets in his solo next [2:40-3:49], and he complexes his original tune, plus he plays louder and impassioned, surprisingly the original theme comes back early [3:51-4:55], and it's such a great tune, it's so good to hear it again, after that Watts improvises on the tune, what a track.
Here's Ernie Watts playing a Saxophone & Piano version of Inward Glance on his Website, gives you some idea what it sounds like, but the Quartet version flows better.
