John Moulder - Trinity (2006)

One can overstate the importance of parallel careers, it's hard to avoid touching on the subject with John Moulder. The ordained priest has also managed an active musical career in Chicago as a guitarist—most notably as a member of ex-Pat Metheny Group drummer Paul Wertico's trio for the past twelve years. It's easy to forget his spiritual leanings on albums like Spirit Talk (Naim, 2003), a standards-based duo record with vibraphonist Ken Hall. But when you call an album Trinity, you're making a statement.

Moulder's record is a fully intended and stylistically sweeping sacred song cycle that, as he writes in his liner notes, "is my musical interpretation of our journey in God from the primordial to the eternal." Ranging from solo pieces to a horn-driven octet, from free improv to pastoral gentility to the Mississippi Delta, it doesn't always succeed in evoking a spiritual journey. As a musical narrative, however, it demonstrates Moulder's multifaceted talents as an improvising guitarist, composer and arranger better than anything he's released to date.

The first two tracks manage to link concept with execution. "Chaos" begins in close to a vacuum, with Moulder's distorted guitar creating ethereal, Frisell-like swells over which soprano saxophonist Rich Corpolongo gradually builds towards angular abstraction. Wertico, bassist Eric Hochberg and pianist Laurence Hobgood build the tension without forgetting that even in chaos, there exists space. "Creation" brings form out of that chaos. A lush, three-piece horn section delivers Moulder's spare theme over an ambling rhythm section, subtly supporting Tito Carillo's Kenny Wheeler-like flugelhorn and Moulder's economically well-constructed acoustic guitar solo.

Other tracks are less inherently visual, but no less compelling. It may be hard to find a clear link between the alternating 6/4 and 5/4 bars of "Exodus" and its title, but with Ken Hall's vibraphone playing and Moulder's quirky melody, the blues feeling harkens back to late-1960s Gary Burton. But rather than the clean tone employed by Larry Coryell, Burton's guitarist of the time, Moulder's heavily distorted tone suggests what might have been had Burton collaborated with Mahavishnu-era John McLaughlin.

Paul McCandless appears on three tracks. The gently pastoral quintet piece "Incarnation" and folkloric duet "Pieta" are very Oregon-esque, featuring the Oregon co-founder on English horn. "Sorrowful Mysteries" is considerably darker. Moulder's overdriven guitar and McCandless' bass clarinet wind around each other melodically before moving into a solo section where Moulder delivers one of the disc's high points—a whammy bar-driven piece of angst that owes more than a passing nod to Norwegian guitarist Terje Rypdal.

What's surprising is that the stylistic variety on Trinity doesn't lose overall focus until the very end. As catchy as the dobro-driven "Freedom" may be, it feels like a non sequitur after the more dramatic, compositionally detailed and somehow final "Resurrection." Still, whether or not it fully succeeds in directly linking music with concept, Trinity certainly makes a strong point for spiritually inspired art.

Review by John Kelman, AllAboutJazz.com

Exact Audio Copy V1.3 from 2. September 2016

EAC extraction logfile from 10. December 2017, 21:28

John Moulder / Trinity

Used drive : PLEXTOR DVDR PX-891SAW Adapter: 0 ID: 4

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 48
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Installed external ASPI interface
Gap handling : Appended to previous track

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 1024 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files\eac-1.0beta4\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -8 -V -T "ARTIST=%artist%" -T "TITLE=%title%" -T "ALBUM=%albumtitle%" -T "DATE=%year%" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%tracknr%" -T "GENRE=%genre%" -T "PERFORMER=%albuminterpret%" -T "COMPOSER=%composer%" %haslyrics%–tag-from-file=LYRICS="%lyricsfile%"%haslyrics% -T "ALBUMARTIST=%albumartist%" -T "ALBUM ARTIST=%albumartist%" -T "DISCNUMBER=%cdnumber%" -T "TOTALDISCS=%totalcds%" -T "TOTALTRACKS=%numtracks%" -T "COMMENT=ivo" %source% -o %dest%


TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.04 | 5:00.01 | 4 | 22504
2 | 5:00.05 | 8:19.04 | 22505 | 59933
3 | 13:19.09 | 3:29.13 | 59934 | 75621
4 | 16:48.22 | 1:32.24 | 75622 | 82545
5 | 18:20.46 | 7:38.28 | 82546 | 116923
6 | 25:58.74 | 1:27.66 | 116924 | 123514
7 | 27:26.65 | 5:37.29 | 123515 | 148818
8 | 33:04.19 | 0:54.36 | 148819 | 152904
9 | 33:58.55 | 6:43.65 | 152905 | 183194
10 | 40:42.45 | 4:35.40 | 183195 | 203859
11 | 45:18.10 | 1:08.47 | 203860 | 209006
12 | 46:26.57 | 6:56.02 | 209007 | 240208
13 | 53:22.59 | 3:56.09 | 240209 | 257917


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Track 4

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Track 11

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All tracks accurately ripped

No errors occurred

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==== Log checksum 957BB4FE3BD907BB6C24F5573CEED4976BA8EAE29FC5FAAB73BEDA01EF2A7069 ====

foobar2000 1.2 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1
log date: 2017-12-13 05:05:58

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Analyzed: John Moulder / Trinity
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

DR Peak RMS Duration Track
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
DR12 -0.10 dB -16.64 dB 5:00 01-Chaos
DR11 -0.10 dB -14.24 dB 8:19 02-Creation
DR9 -0.10 dB -10.85 dB 3:29 03-Exodus
DR15 -0.60 dB -20.33 dB 1:32 04-Incarnation (Introduction)
DR11 -0.10 dB -14.23 dB 7:38 05-Incarnation
DR9 -4.64 dB -19.92 dB 1:28 06-Proclamation of the Unexpected (Introduction)
DR11 -0.10 dB -13.76 dB 5:37 07-Proclamation of the Unexpected
DR14 -3.18 dB -22.38 dB 0:54 08-Sorrowful Mysteries (Introduction)
DR10 -0.70 dB -13.77 dB 6:44 09-Sorrowful Mysteries
DR9 -3.10 dB -15.98 dB 4:36 10-Pieta
DR14 -0.10 dB -21.27 dB 1:09 11-Resurrection (Introduction)
DR8 -0.10 dB -10.83 dB 6:56 12-Resurrection
DR9 -0.10 dB -11.07 dB 3:56 13-Freedom
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Number of tracks: 13
Official DR value: DR11

Samplerate: 44100 Hz
Channels: 2
Bits per sample: 16
Bitrate: 898 kbps
Codec: FLAC
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