Michael Moore - Tunes For Horn Guys - Ramboy cd

Reedman Michael Moore is well known for his propensity as a composer, soloist, and improviser. He is featured as a composer here, and also as a bandleader. The 17 pieces that make up Tunes for Horn Guys were written with this particular ensemble in mind — Wolter Wierbos on trombone, Ab Baars on tenor and Bb clarinet; ditto Tobias Delius and Frank Gratkowski on alto and bass clarinet. Moore plays alto and both clarinets. The music here pays tribute to three very different elements of Moore's musical personality: the ghosts of composers who influenced him, the landscape and mythology of America, and the pervasive and persuasive place of Euro-style improvisation on modern music. These small works rely on the shimmering timbres of brass and reeds as harmonic extensions of one another in forming a color palette that cannot be identified as having one particular shade or shape. Moore's carefully written phrases in "Igor" for instance, echo the composer's penchant for subtle beginnings. His "History of a Space" centers the four reeds on Wierbos' elongated phrases, and echoes them against a contrapuntal backdrop ever so slowly and warmly as Wierbos begins a solo that quotes from various culturally nomenclatured devices. On "Another Day, Another Dollar," whole tones breathe in and out as a melody comes drifting through the center of the mix, courtesy of a pair of clarinets, who play under the saxophones, who are involved in an ostinato of delivery and disappearance. Ultimately, Moore shines as both a composer of haunting clarity and as a bandleader of unshakable faith and vision that there is still possibility in harmonically succinct and restrained music, even in the presence of visionary improvisation. Truly wonderful.

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