Label: Criss Cross
Format: CD
Barcode: 8712474140824
Catalog number: CRISS 1408
Releasedate: 14-01-22
Format: CD
Barcode: 8712474140824
Releasedate: 14-01-22
- Starring Craig Taborn on piano, Dan Weiss on the drums and Eivind Opsvik on Bass
Between 2004 (Bastion of Sanity) and 2016 (The Time Verses), alto saxophonist David Binney made nine albums for Criss Cross as either leader or co-leader, presenting predominantly his distinctive original music. Much of it emanated from his interactions in New York – his home from 1981 until 2018, when he moved to Los Angeles – with a cohort of local musicians comprising a who’s who of contemporary improvisers. During that intense and productive 12-year span, Binney recalls, he often spoke with Gerry Teekens – who founded Criss Cross in 1981 and sustained the label until he died in October 2019, leaving a legacy of over 400 albums, all of them good, some of them classics of the jazz idiom – about making a ballads record. Teekens´ son promised his father to keep the legacy alive and the label going, and after an 18-month recording hiatus he approached some of his´ father’s favorite artists to revive Criss Cross and launch it into the 2020s. One was Binney, who took the opportunity to suggest, “Maybe I should finally do that ballads record in honor of your father.”
The tenth Criss Cross album with Binney’s imprimatur, A Glimpse of the Eternal, is, he says, “completely different than anything I’ve ever done – chilled out, an honest and pleasant vibe, nothing too complicated or intense.” If that self-description seems at odds with the intense, complex tonal personality that Binney has presented on his 30-album discography since 1990...well, that was his intention. He explains: “Initially, I wanted to do something like those almost commercial records from the ’50s or ’60s or ’70s, like a Gene Ammons record I have where he plays these balladlike tunes for 2½-3 minutes.” He adds: “All the guys were superenthusiastic about doing a straight-ahead ballads record.”
The tenth Criss Cross album with Binney’s imprimatur, A Glimpse of the Eternal, is, he says, “completely different than anything I’ve ever done – chilled out, an honest and pleasant vibe, nothing too complicated or intense.” If that self-description seems at odds with the intense, complex tonal personality that Binney has presented on his 30-album discography since 1990...well, that was his intention. He explains: “Initially, I wanted to do something like those almost commercial records from the ’50s or ’60s or ’70s, like a Gene Ammons record I have where he plays these balladlike tunes for 2½-3 minutes.” He adds: “All the guys were superenthusiastic about doing a straight-ahead ballads record.”