Label: Linn Records
Category: Music
Average customer rating:
Format: Hybrid SACD
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1
UPC: 691062016520
EAN: 0691062016520
ASIN: B00005Q6AC
Release Date: 2002-04-09
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Artist:
Perfect Houseplants
Label: Linn Records Category: Music Average customer rating:
Format: Hybrid SACD Media: Audio CD Number Of Discs: 1 UPC: 691062016520 EAN: 0691062016520 ASIN: B00005Q6AC Release Date: 2002-04-09 |
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Jazz
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Styles
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Music
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Pop
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Styles
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Music
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Jazz
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Indie Music
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Music
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Customer Reviews:
Excellent! .......2005-09-05
Sui generis.......2004-01-11
I own probably about a hundred. I'm not bragging here; that just happens to be how it is. Over the course of encountering and embracing this marvelous music, jazz, I somehow stumbled onto English artists such as Tony Coe, Steve Smith, Kenny Wheeler, The Lonely Bears, Gerard Presencer, Guy Barker, Elton Dean, John Butcher, Steve and Julien Arguelles, Mike Westbrook, Evan Parker, John Taylor, John Surman, Tony Oxley, Iain Ballamy, Tony Hymas, Billy Jenkins, John Donaldson, John Stevens, Ray Russell, Theo Travis, Ralph Towner, John Martyn, Bill Bruford, Patrick Clahar, Andy Sheppard, Roger Smith, John Russell, John Edwards, Tristan Honsinger, Trevor Watts, Paul Lytton, Paul Dunmall, Keith Tippett, Clive Bell, Steve Beresford, Courtney Pine, Lol Coxhill, Pat Thomas, Brian Lemon, Stan Tracey, Phil Seamen, John Abercrombie, Barry Guy, and Mark Sanders--not to mention the greatest of all, Barry Sanders. Wait a minute. Wasn't he that great Detroit pianist? Or was that Barry Harris? Maybe sometime I'll get around to reviewing some of these people. Then again, maybe not.
In any case, I also stumbled on these guys, Perfect Houseplants. Amazingly, it took me nearly three years to catch their vibe, which is English folk music mapped onto European jazz. Really, there's nothing quite like it out there.
And to these ears, it's quite attractive.
The group--Huw Warren on piano, keys, and accordian; Mark Lockheart on tenor and soprano sax; Dudley Phillips on electric and acoustic bass; and Martin France on drums and electronic percussion--are all prominent younger members of the British jazz scene. With Pamela Thorby added on recorder on four cuts, they play a very listenable, if unusual, kind of jazz folk.
Interestingly, all the songs are band-member originals, often employing traditional materials as part of their makeup. Half of them were commissioned by Eastern Arts as part of the 1999 Andrew Milne (A. A. Milne of Pooh fame?) Award, and "take their original inspiration from the landscape and traditional music of East Anglia," according to the liner notes. What we get is a very pleasing amalgam of folk sensibilities and jazz improv.
Music like this could come from nowhere but the British Isles, and to these ears it presents not only a new and intriguing view of those marvelous lands but also a peek into some of the genius of the English jazz scene, too often not even on the horizon of American listeners. Lilting, accessible, sophisticated jazz--that's what I hear here. And maybe you will too.
Music CD:
Music CD
Farewell Andromeda ~ John Denver
Prisoner of Hope ~ Chris Falson
If You Need Me ~ Wilson Pickett