REVIEWS

From the downbeat, the screaming-hot, new release from FOUR, “On a Warm Summer’s Evening” is fat-city! Too hip for hep-cats, too cool for the fans and readily accessible to anyone who is impressed with virtuoso execution all shown up with ferociously-delicious arrangements. Lush and interesting in it’s soulful melancholy one minute and you’re swept away by a “Manteca-ish” groove the next. Could this be “Supersax” re-inventing themselves after entering the witness protection program? How did this happen? Then again, who cares? These cats are dazzling in every way! From the Mingus-styled moments of collective improvisation interwoven with tightly executed parts; you never know what’s coming next and, like Beethoven, it’s always the perfect thing that follows. Sometimes it’s a ballad and sometimes it’s picture perfect, straight-ahead, swinging jazz.

If I have one complaint, it’s this – more fast stuff. I got hooked on the first 3 tunes and was jonesin’ for more up-tempo tunes. I need my Mark Watkins bop-fix! This is great jazz from start to finish – beautiful, intelligent, soulful, swinging and all done with the highest caliber of performance. Congratulations guys, this is sublime.



Noah Peterson
—
Peterson Entertainment, Llc
KPSU Radio Portland