While we're still recovering from our recent sojourn to New York, Bennie Maupin's Early Reflections received 4 stars in The Week, which as is its style, offered a compendium of various early reviews:
"For the past 35 years, Bennie Maupin has been a faithful foot soldier of progressive jazz, said Mark Stryker in the Detroit Free Press. His "sinewy" bass clarinet playing helped to define Miles Davis' landmark Bitches Brew and he later worked with Herbie Hancock on the keyboardist's early forays into jazz fusion. Early Reflections finds the multi-instrumentalist in his element, wonderfully expressive and free to delve into the "lush avant-gardism" that makes his palying unique. This album just isn't a chance for Maupin to sum up the different styles he's explored over the years, said Michael West in the Village Voice. It's a continutation to a lifelong devotion to musical experimentation. Playing flute, clarinet or saxophone, and supported here by a relatively unknown Polish quartet, Maupin daringly rejects musical scrictures and imagines an "acoustic post-bop jazz of rich lyricism" that's at once subtle and audacious. "Coaxing wistful phrases from his soprano" sax, Maupin transforms the "eeriness" of "The Jewel and the Lotus" from his 1974 album of the same name into "sweet reverie." He creates a sense of wonderment throughout, pairing short sketch-like compositions with sweeping drifts of euphony. Early Reflections reveals a musical depth "refined by experience and cured through wisdom," said Michael Nastos in Billboard. By putting himself at the helm, Maupin creates the "most introspective" and remarkable recording of a "long and varied" career."
In direct opposite news, Das Wilco made the "Live Reviews" section of the current Spin magazine -- but where on earth was any text mention of the LEAD GUITARIST Nels Courtney Cline? Well, at least the had a small photo of him playing the lap steel...
