Jazziz- January 1998
Ellery Eskelin with Andrea Parkins & Jim Black
One Great Day...
(Hatology/Hat Art)
Ellery Eskelin could get away with murder. That tone
is all the alibi he'd need. With his beautiful, meaty, oscillating yow, the tenor
saxophonist and long time New York resident knows how to hook listeners by incarnating
the horn's romantic tradition while inking fresh initials on it's heart. Eskelin
is consistent that way, from the "Body and Soul" cover on his 1992 all-solo disc, Premonition,
to last year's The Sun Died,
a glorious, gritty stomper in homage to Chicago tenor-man Gene Ammons.
One Great Day...
showcases that virtue, illustrating the kind of freedom it buys. The album is an artifact
of Eskelin's touring trio drummer Jim Black, accordionist/sampler manipulator Andrea
Parkins which, in ways at once perversely skewed and perfectly winning, might be an abstract version of the Hammond B-3 organ combos in which Eskelin's mom used
to play (a nifty fact revealed in the leader's liner notes).
The opening title track plots the aesthetic arc with 8:43 worth of mood swings and
genre quakes: After hours swagger jump-cuts to surreal merry-go-round themes, then
to something akin to township jive, and finally to full-scale emotional spillage.
Not for nothing does the saxophonist pick Roland Kirk's "The Inflated Tear" as the sole cover
tune: The very works offer a verbal cue to his concept. It's one that frees Eskelin's
sidemen to juxtapose rattling grooves and gothic shadows, while the leader commits
his own crimes of passion. (Available through NorthCountry: Cadence Building, Redwood,
NY 13679.)
-Steve Dollar
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