Erik Truffaz - Out of a Dream

Truffaz has experimented with electronica-tinged dance music and ensemble improvisation, but on his 1997 major label debut Out Of A Dream, he channels the spirit and sound of Miles Davis. The way Truffaz delicately and economically phrases smatterings of thin warm notes begs comparison with Miles.

But Truffaz doesn’t just play parrot here, he takes that classic sound and wraps it around a bunch of elegant tunes that you’d swear were laid down decades ago. With a title like Out Of A Dream, one would expect this album to be a languid affair, and it doesn’t disappoint. Truffaz and his quintet spin one mid-tempo ballad into another, each track a strand of golden sunshine piercing through gray rainclouds. ‘Down Town’ opens with Truffaz blowing simple figures on his trumpet before the rest of the group jump in and kick the track into gear. The way Truffaz darts around his band’s interlocking groove cannot fail to bring to mind the first famous quintet of Miles Davis. But it’s the title track - a deceptively complex ballad that sounds every bit like a lazy Saturday morning in bed - that sets the pace for the entire album.Truffaz has made a game effort to deflect the depth of Miles’ influence upon his sound. Obviously, the bulls eye that comes with such a comparison is daunting enough, but any artist worth their salt strives to be original and not just some two-cent carbon copy of the real deal. So Truffaz says things like “My band sounds like itself” while the biography on his website admits that hearing Kind Of Blue as a 16 year old changed his life and sent him into a career in music.But Truffaz needn’t worry about dodging such lofty comparisons. Out Of A Dream sounds unavoidably like Miles, but it retains enough of his magic and genius - things that can’t merely be copied rote - that it comes off like a long lost album from the great trumpeter’s archive. And that’s meant as a compliment - one of the biggest I can think of, actually. - dk.presents.wordpress.com

Personnel:
Erik Truffaz (Trumpet and Flugelhorn)
Cyrille Bugnon (Tenor and Alto Saxophone)
Patrick Muller (Piano)
Marcello Giuliani (Double Bass)
Marc Erbetta (Drums)

Tracks:
1. Down Town 2:01
2. Out of a Dream 7:36
3. Beaute Bleue 5:59
4. Wet in Paris 6:24
5. Porta Camollia 5:21
6. Indigo 5:49
7. Saisir 3:55
8. Elegie 3:23
9. Samara 5:24
10. Up Town 2:11
11. Betty 1:42
All compositions by Erik Truffaz

http://www.filefactory.com/file/d84181/

Blog: http://intotherhythm.blogspot.com/