The modal improvising, the impressionistic gestures, the willingness to slip in and out of a swinging groove all give the 10 pieces the ability to challenge and surprise. The debut album is an acoustic session with almost no dissonance, yet it is no retro project. To fill out the quartet, the two friends recruited pianist Geri Allen and Moffett's father Charles, an early drummer with Coleman. The General Music Project was formed in 1993 as a vehicle for bridging the gap between mainstream and avant-garde jazz by Garrett, who had played with both Art Blakey and the electrified Miles Davis, and bassist Charnett Moffett, who had played with both Wynton Marsalis and Ornette Coleman. That Garrett composition first appeared on "General Music Project," an album released in Japan in 1994 and finally issued here this year. One of the album's highlights is "Sing a Song of Song," a hymn-like piece that recalls the spiritual invocations of Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders. "The House That Nat Built" boasts a catchy theme that keeps stopping in its tracks to leave us hanging in suspense for the payoff a terrific energy is the result, much of it the product of Watts's relentlessly physical and inventive drumming. On "Brother Hubbard," named for Freddie Hubbard, the tension between the attractive sax melody and the stubbornly repeating bass figure is exploited for a dramatic tug-of-war. Garrett's "Wooden Steps," for example, is modeled on Coltrane's "Giant Steps" and comes at the listener in wave upon wave of stabbing modal variations on the simple, hypnotic theme. Garrett has a very different approach than Marsalis - rooted more in the aggressive experimentation of the '60s than the refined classicism of the '50s - but he's just as exciting in his own way and just as deserving of prominence. After showing his skill at interpreting jazz standards on the last two projects, Garrett emerges as an imposing composer on his new album, "Songbook." He wrote all 10 of the varied but substantial pieces, and he recorded them with two-fifths of the original Wynton Marsalis Quintet - drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts and pianist Kenny Kirkland - as well as bassist Nat Reeves. ![]() ![]() He avoided the temptation of fast and flashy runs in favor of digging into the emotional core of the material. Playing alto and soprano saxophone, Garrett displayed a thick, vocal-like tone he could harden into a testifying shout or relax into an intimate whisper. On his last two albums, 1995's "Trilogy" and last year's "Pursuance: The Music of John Coltrane," Kenny Garrett established himself as one of the more distinctive young talents in jazz.
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