Swimming

Artist: Tom Varner
Label: Omnitone Records
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 686281190328
EAN: 0686281190328
ASIN: B0000296SV

Release Date: 1999-10-26

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Listmania:

Ye of Open Ears! Some mid-size ensembles for your perusal.
Varied Jazz Horn Players
Anti-Smooth Jazz: Violins, Violas and Celli! O My!
Composers/Players Who Deserve To Be Better Known

Tracks:

Swimming
Pantoum
Maybe Yes
Samuel Gets The Call
Seven Miniatures For Mark Feldman: A Waltz
Seven Miniatures For Mark Feldman: Mark At The Circus
Seven Miniatures For Mark Feldman: A Dream
Seven Miniatures For Mark Feldman: Mark Goes To Work
Seven Miniatures For Mark Feldman: A Memory Of One Nashville Gig
Seven Miniatures For Mark Feldman: Mark Goes Minimalist
Seven Miniatures For Mark Feldman: Another Circus
OmniTone Blues
Paul Goes To Rome
Strident
Chicago Interlude

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Second Communion
The Window Up Above: American Songs
Full of Life
African Tarantella
Hyperion With Higgins

Customer Reviews:

Music to live with for a long time.......2004-08-06

Mr Varner is quoted in the liner notes to this fine album as asking whether artists can produce excellent work when they are happy - not a silly question because he is referring to a common belief that the best art is the outcome of emotional and financial torment and, as in other arts, jazz for want of a better term, has its legends: Bix Beiderbecke, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and others who suffered the torments of alcoholism, drugs, and other hardships in service to their art. On the other hand, jazz has Duke Ellington, Reggie Workman, and many others who have produced great art without recourse to the level of suffering of those others. Tom Varner is a an artist, a professional, who puts a lot of time and care into his recorded work and clearly treats the production of an album as a major opportunity to clarify, document and discipline his art. He is a major artist in contemporary music and if his name is on a work rest assured you will be witness to outstanding contemporary music performed by major musicians of the day. I have listened to SWIMMING over three years and still marvel at its swing, variety, pulse, harmonic interest, and emotional power and as the dying notes of Chicago Interlude disappear, I am tempted to play it again. Like fine wine though, I hold back and listen to some background music for a rest.
Be warned - you are around whilst Tom Varner is making this music- catch ALL OF IT while you can.

One of the best jazz albums of the last few years........2001-10-25

The first thing to note about this CD is the instrumentation: Tom Varner-french horn, Steve Wilson-alto sax, Tony Malaby-tenor sax, Cameron Brown-bass, Tom Rainey-drums, are on every song. Mr. Varner also uses Mark Feldman on violin (the featured player on songs 6-11 listed above), Dave Ballou on trumpet and Pete McCann on guitar. Varner makes full use of the possibilities composing ensemble and counterpoint passages. At time individual voices rise above the rest, at times two or three instruments bounce off two or three others and always the music is interesting, striving toward something different, new and beautiful.
The playing by everyone is wonderful. Mr. Varner on the french horn stands alone. I have never heard anyone approach his facility on the instrument. Maybe I haven't heard enough Julius Watkins (who has?) but I do not recall him playing like this. Malaby is a revelation to me on the tenor. Wilson is excellent. Cameron Brown is one of the great group bass players of the last twenty years (think George Adams-Don Pullen Quartet) and Tom Rainey is magnificent on the drums- always busy diversifying the time but always supporting whomever is playing. Mark Feldman's playing on the minitures writen for him is up to his own standard which is perfection. Can you tell I like these guys? My only regret is that I would like to have heard more of Pete McCann.
Tom Varner on this album has firmly entered what I consider to be the second pantheon of jazz composers. He is not up there with Ellington, Mingus, Monk and Hemphill (my personal quirk) yet. At times he comes very close on this CD. But he is up there with the likes of Wayne Shorter, Cedar Walton, Mark Helias, Henry Threadgill, Anthony Braxton, Charlie Parker, Horace Tapscott, Sun Ra, Joe Henderson, Ornette Coleman and the others who writings and work make up what I still believe to be one of America's few truely great contributions to the culture of humanity. We can only hope that Tom Varner continues to develope.
Check this music out.

Awesome.......2000-06-01

This is a great CD. Right off the bat he hooks you in. The virtuosity with which Tom Varner plays in amazing. On an instrument so low on the totem pole in jazz, Mr. Varner is making a name for it and bringing it into the mainstream. In my opinion, this is a great piece of art.

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