Joe Morris – bass | Peter Cancura – tenor and soprano saxophones | Jason Nazary – drums
Recorded February 3, 2007 at Riti Studios, Guilford, Connecticut, USA. Engineered, mixed, and mastered by Petr Cancura. Produced by Cancura/Morris/Nazary. Cover photograph by Petr Cancura. Layout and design by Anne Marcotty.
Tracklist: 1. Beautiful existence 2. Rwanda 3. My Reverie 4. Big foot 5. Flip & Spike 6. Gazzelloni 7. Folk 8. Voice Poetry
Playing bass
Joe Morris
has given me a new opportunity to play music with so many great musicians. Some are known and some are not. I have always tried to do new things with new people, but now as a bassist I have more of those chances than ever before. So here is another recording with new players that deserve to be heard.
Petr Cancura
Petr Cancura is a man of many talents. In addition to being a great musician he is also a photographer, a builder and a recording engineer. I met him at New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. I am on the faculty there and Petr was a student working on his Master of Music degree. He joined an ensemble of mine there and was later a student in my studio. When he arrived it was clear to everyone that he was a very accomplished player, capable of doing just about anything he tried to do. He is extremely open to ideas. His technique is so strong that he can do whatever he imagines. His sound is rich and deep and old, like a tenor player from long ago. The fact that he also plays a great clarinet just adds to his promise. He plays flute too and you might think you hear that on this CD but in fact on the track “Folk” he is playing in the open end of the clarinet. Petr was born in Czech was raised in Ottawa, Canada and now lives in Brooklyn. He has traveled throughout Europe and North America performing with many people including drummer Richie Barshay, trumpeter Nicole Rampersal, clarinetist Michael Winograd and many others. Petr did one tour in Canada with a group of African musicians performing traditional music with them. That experience is highlighted here in the piece titled aftertheir homeland “Rwanda”. Petr is a talented composer in a variety of styles and formats. His music is not limited to any one style, but it is always honest and sincere with a high degree of mastery and artistic integrity.
Jason Nazary was also a student for a while at NEC. I met him there but we never worked together while he was a student. He had a reputation there as a very talented and original player. He left school and took that rep with him to New York ahead of his classmates and quickly got to work performing with many of the finest young players of his generation including Darius Jones, Shayna Dulberger, Noah Kaplan, Giacomo Merega, among others. Like his colleagues the range of his music is vast and adventurous. He has a unique sense of flow in his playing. He is as elastic as it comes and he swings like an old tree. Petr suggested Jason join us for this recording. We got together and it was clear right from the start that he would try different things and never settle for the obvious. Jason is a great listener and he provokes originality. He takes chances when he plays. He is unique in thatthe control he has in his playing allows him to make rhythms that are oblique and abstract but still swing and groove with a natural ease. It’s clear that he is always searching for that fresh idea and different way to mark the pulse.
Jason Nazary
We chose material that we felt changed our interaction but that kept the playing simple enough so that we could carry on loosely and playfully I ike an old blowin’session from the 50’s but with a new kind of direction. Some tracks are originals. A couple of them are pieces that I recorded on guitar, two are by Petr and a few are interpretations of compositions by great masters. The tune “My Reverie” is an old and under-utilized standard. Sonny Rollins played it on “Tenor Madness”. We have a different take on it here. Another, “Voice Poetry” was recorded by Ornette Coleman’s electric group “Prime Time”. The pieces inform our soloing and allow us to mark time with our own collective spirit but also with variety. There are no strict arrangements. This is open and spontaneously improvised trio music with thematic structures that give us a platform to create some fine objects for listening. — Joe Morris September 2008
Great unpretentious sax trio
playing improvised music around thematic structures, with three excellent musicians, freely, but sounding like a very traditional bop sax trio. A pleasure to hear, “fine objects for listening”, as Joe Morris aptly puts it in the liner notes. Morris plays bass, Petr Cancura tenor and soprano, and Jason Nazary drums. The playlist consists of two “older” Morris compositions, one by Dolphy, one by Ornette Coleman, and a few group compositions/improvisations. The sound quality is good, the technical skills are excellent, the improvisations deeply felt, the accessibility is high. No boundaries are broken, no exceptional things are tried out, but just listening to the absolute basic notion of what a sax trio should sound like, is a true joy. — stef, freejazz-stef blogspot
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Guitarist Joe Morris continues his 2002 experimentation with the double-bass. On Fine Objects, he leads a trio of saxophone, bass, and drums through two of his own compositions, a couple of trio improvisations, and other compositions by Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, Larry Clinton and Petr Cancura.
Morris chose two former students from the New England Conservatory in Boston for this session. Tenor saxophonist Cancura, born in the Czech Republic, is gaining quite the reputation in jazz circles. He has been a sideman to Bob Moses and Danilo Perez, but it was his session with Morris and Luther Gray on Wildlife (AUM Fidelity, 2009) that catapulted him into the big time. Drummer Jason Nazary has played in various rock indie bands and with Darius Jones and Shayna Dulberger.
Like Morris’ Bass Quartet recording High Definition (Hatology, 2009), he doesn’t eschew swing in favor of the modern. The effect, mostly due to Cancura’s horn, is a throwback to the 1960s, or even the ’50s, perhaps. Although a young man, his sound is that of an old soul. With Morris laying down a powerful repetitive groove on “Rwanda,” Cancura flitters off notes, chewing on upper register and breathy sounds that are equal parts Lester Young and Pharoah Sanders. Even when he takes on a ballad like “My Reverie,” he maintains that ruminative quality of the old masters.
On his own “Big Foot,” Cancura switches to soprano. The sometimes impenetrable straight horn yields to his approach with ease. Morris and Nazary’s laidback sense and relaxed swing showcase the saxophonist. When Morris picks up his bow on “Folk,” Cancura goes on to blow flute-like notes through his open ended clarinet, while Nazary works his cymbals. The piece features Morris, extending wave upon wave of energy, on this, his “second” instrument.
Joe Morris in his new role as bassist/leader is a revelation; the same can be said of the young Petr Cancura.