While the European jazz scene is growing and exploring bit by bit, there's a special love of the tenor sax in Switzerland.
Andy Scherrer has been near the top of that Swiss sax movement for a while now, and here he shows why. In combination with a collection of Swiss performers and a stray pianist from Michigan (and New York, ultimately), a set of modern pieces is kicked around, played with, tinkered with, and eventually released to the winds. The combination is a powerful one. The songs, primarily originals, flow from the group in a fairly bouncing manner, written and/or arranged for the sensibilities of the band itself. The stray pianist,
Bill Carrothers, takes every opportunity to show off some particularly nice chops, with an extended tinkering solo in "Waltz for Blaine" standing as one of the better examples. The melodic lines throughout are held up by a front line of no less than three saxophones:
Scherrer as well as
Domenic Landolf and Jurg Bucher. The three tend to work in tandem with one another, diverging primarily for accentuation and counterpoint. The result is a thick sound, warbling saxes united for much of the record. As the album progresses, the band moves from straightforward soul-jazz and hard bop to post-bop in a
Bill Evans vein, to moaning, exploring free jazz in the realm of
Albert Ayler, to a twinkling, tinkling rendition of
Coltrane's "After the Rain" courtesy of
Carrothers. Though there's a bit of a lull when the band breaks out the kazoos (yes, the kazoos), there's a lot of goodness to be had here. ~ Adam Greenberg