Early Last Morning

Label: PKO Records
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 663731002523
EAN: 0663731002523
ASIN: B0009PX63Y

Release Date: 2004-04-10

Related Categories:

General

| Jazz | Styles | Music

General

| Jazz | Indie Music | Stores | Music

Tracks:

Panoramic Pictures
Early Last Morning
Smatta
Two Like a Song
Marcella's Mocha
Since Then
April Mist
Could Go Either Way
The Fink Factor
Alexa's Thing

Customer Reviews:

Late Most Recent Tomorrow!.......2006-06-16

Is a fan of music I. Not did graduate high school from. Though. Hardest class English was. Star Wars Did watch times many. Great influence Yoda had. Word meaning and english usage matter not. Music good is. Fentriss great pupil of Michael Grace JazzMaster. Everything he knows, taught him. Except English and word order. Or order word. I do not remember. I cannot even remember if I am Neil or Nigel when I am causing mischief online.

A first release from a first class talent.......2005-10-05

"Early Last Morning" by Steve Fentriss, reviewed by Neil Chapel
Oct 5, 2005

Let's get a couple of things out of the way right off the bat. First, get over the fact that Steve Fentriss was 16 years old when he wrote, arranged and recorded this cd. This is not a novelty record by a precocious youth. It is a first recording by a first class talent. You will agree 1) when you hear this album or 2) years from now when everyone claims they knew from the start that Fentriss was destined to be a great talent. Get "Early Last Morning" now while it is still an undervalued and underpriced "local" release. There will come a time when the Fentriss first album, long out of print, will be a sought after prize. Ebay-ers, start your search engines.

Second. This is not a vanity album by a local musician who wants to have something to show his grandkids when he retires from the Chrysler assembly line. Yes, the album begins with a drum cadenza, and ends with a song played solo by Steve on piano, but this only ads symmetry to 63 minutes of inspired writing, skilled playing and craftsman-like arrangements. If Steve retires from a career other than music 40 years from now, it will be his choice, not because he didn't have a future in music.

I buy music of small-label musicians not signed to national contracts; rock, jazz, country, what have you. This pool of local talent is twice as wide and three times deeper than the selections you will find at chain department stores or electronics "superstores". By local I don't mean just the Detroit/Ann Arbor area which is local to me. Everywhere I travel, San Francisco, Seattle, Puerto Rico or Minneapolis, is rich with incredible creativity playing clubs and private engagements. To paraphrase an old oxymoron, you can hear a lot just by listening.

So, what do you hear when you listen to "Early Last Morning"? The CD cover provides a clue: "Original Modern Jazz". But that phrase covers lots of ground. If forced to put these songs into a specific genre, it would be cool or modal jazz; the arrangements are built around the melody, and improvisations follow suit. Put this CD on a multiple disc player, choose "random shuffle" and the songs on this album mix seamlessly with Davis' "Birth of the Cool", Brubeck and Getz.

Fentriss also manages to dodge many of the clichýs of modern jazz including the trend towards soft-jazz rhythm section arrangements that owe more to pop rock than jazz. I'm also glad to hear a cool jazz album that doesn't over-emphasize the role of saxophone to the detriment of the rest of the band. It's not that Vincent York's sax on two songs is not welcome. In fact hearing it is a real treat, made even more special by the fact that the sax does not dominate the rest of the album. I firmly believe that if not for John Coltrane and the fact that the sax resembles the letter "J", the trumpet/coronet would remain the iconic symbol of jazz, not the saxophone which is actually a fairly recent addition to the jazz vernacular, having displaced the clarinet during the Swing era of big bands. The spare use of sax on "ELM", gave Fentriss the freedom to provide space for the great horn playing of Paul Finkbeiner and Chris Smith.

If forced to offer a critique of this album, it might be that fans of hard bop, fusion or other forms of modern jazz might be disappointed that Steve did not venture far from the swinging rhythms and organic melodies of the cool jazz genre. But I happen to like how Steve maintains a consistent mood and feel without the need to veer off into hard bop, just because he can. Besides, his career is long from over, and I fully expect that future offerings will display his versatility and take us into other realms of music, be it jazz or otherwise.

I can't wait.

An Excellent Debut for Steve Fentriss.......2005-08-25

I got this album when Steve sold it to me out of the trunk of his car; I'd happened to run into him a few days beforehand at the Firefly Club in Ann Arbor after not having seen him for some 8 or 9 years. In the meantime, I discovered to my delight, he'd been becoming a skilled drummer, landing some gigs and making this first album. As far as my listening tastes had been concerned, I'd been becoming a huge fan of Pat Metheny (among other jazz); Steve said if I liked Pat's music he thought I'd probably dig his too.

And as it turned out, I liked the music immediately when I started listening to the album - Steve puts out great sound, in the style of '20's era jazz I've heard: Lots of smooth and in many cases I'd say sultry too. I also very much enjoyed the complexity of the songs compositionally, without reducing the accessibility of the songs for the audience. This is of course made all the more impressive when you think about how Steve was only 16 during the recording phase for the album.

Technically the album is also very rewarding - Steve is himself a superb drummer, and he brings some other local talent with him for this album, although when you hear them the "talent" part weighs in more heavily than the "local" part. Many of his other musicians have been highly praised in their own right in the area, and have been playing much longer than Steve at his ripe young age. You can call that lucky for Steve that he learned to play amidst such talented musicians, but I call it lucky for us, the listeners, that they all decided to team up and bring this music to us.

In summary: Definitely recommended.

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