Noel Mc Ghie & Space Spies

NOEL Mc GHIE and his group have recorded a fresh music, familiar in many ways to the traditional jazz sounds and yet unlike the sound that you thought they sound like. Dig this disc, and double dig the solos of each musician, especially the long drum intro of Mc GHIE on Ubet. On Trapeze Part A & B, one can hear the coming "twogether" of the musicians, no more "individual" egocentricity, but a new "twogetherness", just as traditional jazz was, a communal music, a music of the people. The latter is the crux of the whole matter now. NOEL Mc GHIE has the due credentials as a versatile percussionist and the strong references of such bright rainbow brothers as Steve Lacy, Mal Waldron, Clifford Thornton, Archie sheep and Byard Lancaster. This disc displays another side of his musical personality, that of jazz composer, meaning a creator of Black classical music compositions. The group is a bouquet of Third Worlders. The trumpeter is ITURU OKI from Japan. He speaks on his trumpet a delicate oriental prose, that swing communicatively. He is the one of the two Japanese Jazz musicians that (the other a guitarist with Sonny Rollins)is developing a Japanese dialect in Jazz! Arigato!! The alto saxophonist is Jorge Joao from Brazil. He blows a happy-late-evening-call breeze horn, that reminds one of mangos over ripe or shining muscles that glisten in the early morning sun in some sugar cane field. The electric piano is played with excellent taste, that is to say, the human touch is very evident, thus one is aware of soulfulness and not a mechanical full of Highly Dangerous Voltage. Give the merci beaucoup to pianist Georges Nouel from Martinique (that island of Black poets, poets, Césaire, Lero, Monnerot, Fanon, etc…) also from that island in the sun is the joyful bass man Louis Xavier, who created almost melodic drum like passages throughout all the compositions that are never monotonous. this man on bass encourages and supports the soloists as well as being the prime mover of each ensemble passage. Dig his work on Mlle Tuloch. And then there is the leader of this cooperative group, Noel Mc Ghie. He has always been one of my favorite young drummers. One of the reasons is that, he "plays" the drums and is not consistently beating them. Too bad that many drummers do not know the difference between playing the drums and beating them all during a session. Noel is a young master of drum-taste. He as learned from many and is still picking up on what is good for him to learn. He is perhaps aware that Western World drums, even though they are mass-manufactured, unlike those of traditional Afica, are also communicating vessels that embody a vital spirit, therefore possessing a soul of their own, must be treat as such. Noel Mc Ghie is an intelligen drummer, just as the great Sunny Murray and Max Roach, men who do not go mad at the drums, but are seriously rhythmically vigorous. Listen and relisten to his intro Ubet, and I bet you'll dig what I mean! Dig this fresh free group doing an OUR Thing TWOGETHER going ONWARD - toward the needed HOPE!!