The Jeff Bridges thing

On the train back home from LOFT festival, dog-tired (did have to get up once I laid down, sort of a trampoline effect), I’m finally listening to Coptic Dub from the Embassadors, which Hayden (above) gave me at the last moment. The group are probably named for the fact that they do an embarrassing job as ambassadors for jazz. Or anything really. The record’s a smash, like Hayden’s previous cooperation with Burnt Friedman, Heaps Dub from Root 70.

I promised additional riffing on a curious part of Hayden’s musical aesthetic, which allows that you will have a traditional sax trio with everybody busy playing their lines or beats and it doesn’t feel like anyone solos at all. It’s sort of a reverse of the historical development in jazz during the 60s when rhythm instruments came into their own and it suddenly felt as if everyone in the group soloed at once.

Hayden has written on his blog, which you might want to follow (except that he publishes his own poetry on it from time to time, but you can always skip that, there are often grabs of music he enjoys which are very inspiring, so go to www.softspeakers.com), that many of his more hardcore jazz fans just can’t get the interest in timbre he indulges in on the Dubs records. He himself has some heavy Japanese mythological thing going for it which I’m not exactly into, I would just say it sounds great. Is it cheap to get there through leaning on a Hammond B3? I don’t care, it all just sounds so great. Which was Burnt’s part of the job, I reckon.

Actually, in some respects Coptic Dub is the more traditional of the two records, since the sax mostly works as melody instrument, so my argument doesn’t hold. But I’m glad it doesn’t, because here you’re much closer to the sound – of the instruments, and of virtual spaces you’re guided by cunning artists to walk through. Matt Penman on bass and Jochen Rückert on drums. Hey, I’m the embedded blogger, so don’t trust me, but if you’re out shopping for some “difficult easy listening”, as Hayden puts it, I seriously embrace this record.

The pic is of the curator of the festival in transition mode between budding alto player and the Jeff Bridges aging throat-singing country mighthavebeen movie star thing (see post 2 from me a week ago, about ‘The Heart of Kansas’).

Out until the unforeseeable future and big thanks to everyone who has followed.

Lutz Eitel