 Mount Everest Trio The other morning I woke up to some screeching, clunkering out-jazz, having inadvertently set my alarm clock to "Radio" as opposed to "CD." The CD would have awoken me gently; the jazz (courtesy our local college radio station) sounded like three cats trying to make a record. I don't mean "jazz cats," either, I mean cats, like the ones who use a litterbox. My first thought was to go down to the station and grab whatever hipster pedant was DJing and give him a right good smackdown, knocking the black frames off his face and telling him to get looser pants. But then I realized that it's no more productive to be mad at a hipster for playing out-jazz at 7am than it is to be mad at your cat for meowing at thin air around the same time. In any case, this whole event taught me that nowadays, I'm more likely to want to hear a cat meowing than a bunch of noisy jazz. Perhaps I'm through that stage of life and my need to feel "avant" has been superseded by my need for things to be pleasant. Now, I've hardly turned my back on it, but my appreciation for Archie Shepp and Alice Coltrane doesn't need to be practiced at the moment, and my tolerance for new musicians doing noisy jazz is nil. So you hate your graphic design job, huh? Well, quit taking it out on the vibraphone. None of which has anything to do with the Mount Everest Trio. This album is a pure delight, noisy though it be. Blaring sax, rumbling drums, slashing bass, conjuring the spirit of Ayler in 1975 Sweden. It's gorgeous, pristine stuff – the kind of record that new "experimental jazz" musicians ought to hear so that they'll realize we already have albums like that, but better ones. So am I pro-noisy jazz, or against it? Ah, I'm the same as I ever was: categorically in favor of whatever is good.
Review by Wimpempy Tarlisle |