Pete La Roca - Basra (Toshiba/EMI Japan) Vinyl rip in 24 Bit/96 Khz + CD-format

Five Huge Stars? How about SIX! This is a REAL KEEPER. One of the Blue Note magical "All Star"recordings. Pete La Roca led the date, but it could have been any of the "Quartet which doesn't seem like a Quartet". These gentlemen are painting with a huge tonal canvas with broad, bold strokes. Joe Henderson is on tenor sax, Steve Kuhn on piano, Steve Swallow on bass, and Pete on drums. From the beginning bars of the recording to the end, this magical journey will knock your socks off.

The best of the best, "Pieces D'Resistance", begin with "Malaguena", a swirling, whirling piece of jazz mastery led off by Joe Henderson in the starring role of Matador, with Steve Kuhn as the Bull, and LaRoca and Swallow providing a restless beat for both. It's a masterful performance that grabs you from the first note of Kuhn's recurring ten note figure over the churning beat. And in comes Joe for a Tour de Force solo which is modal, freeing him up to soar over the normal chord changes. Kuhn follows with his own Tour de Force solo. If you are familiar with the incredible CD "Three Waves", the trio effort by this very same rhythm section, you already know that Kuhn is capable of bringing down huge amounts of thunder and lightning during his piano solos with LaRoca and Swallow providing hurricane gales and torrential rain. Kuhn's solo builds to a crescendo that is amazing, with LaRoca relentlessly pouring on the heat. And back comes Joe to sustain this intensity to the fadeout. "Malaguena" is simply a thing of tremendous beauty and intensity and is NOT TO BE MISSED by any jazz fan. A "Performance For The Ages"!!

But things are just getting started. "Candu" is a wild and wicked blues, hitting on all cylinders. The beautiful, sizzling "Tears Come From Heaven" is written by Pete and was last heard on the Art Farmer CD, "Sing Me Softly of the Blues", with this very same rhythm section backing Art. Joe and Steve get off another great solo each, but Pete comes to the fore to solo and he is blazing. The title track "Basra", written by Pete, has Swallow providing a hip, mysterious, Middle-eastern flavor to the track with his fat tone and reverberations that were virtually unheard on the original vinyl LP, and the other three contributing yearning solos about the legendary Iraqi port city. A beautiful, pastoral reading of "Lazy Afternoon" and Swallow's gently bopping "Eiderdown" round out this tremendous CD. This is an Essential Recording that will reward you for decades to come, revealing hidden jewels each time. Messrs. Henderson, Kuhn, Swallow, and leader La Roca have outdone themselves. And of course, it was originally a Blue Note LP from the magical 1960s period. Five (I give it SIX) Huge Stars!!

Track listing:

All compositions by Pete La Roca except as indicated

"Malagueña" (Ernesto Lecuona) - 8:58
"Candu" - 6:42
"Tears Come from Heaven" - 4:58
"Basra" - 9:55
"Lazy Afternoon" (John La Touche, Jerome Moross) - 5:30
"Eiderdown" (Steve Swallow) - 4:26

Recorded at Rudy Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey on May 19, 1965

Personnel:

Pete La Roca - drums
Joe Henderson - tenor saxophone
Steve Kuhn - piano
Steve Swallow - bass