Search - Adam Glasser :: Free at First

The harmonica is an instrument equally at home with the blues, rock, and jazz. But it s not usually associated with South African music. The brilliant South African-born, London-based harmonica virtuoso/pianist Adam Glasser who has worked with Hugh Masakela, Dudu Pukwana, Martha Reeves, and Jimmy Witherspoon narrows those six degrees of syncopation on his Sunnyside debut, Free at First: a dancing and diverse thirteen-track recording featuring an impressive array of British and South African musicians, including keyboardist Robin Aspland, bassists Steve Watts, and Andy Hamill, drummer Tristan Malliot, the legendary South African singer Pinise Saul, BBC award-winning vocalist Anita Wardell, and narrator David Serame.

With Free at Last, Glasser seeks to give this under appreciated instrument a well-deserved moment in the sun , writes Thomas Rome in the CD liner notes, He does so by translating a mixture of jazz chestnuts ... classic South African material ... a Brazilian song ... and originals into a chromatic harmonica language that he caressed into a simple, graceful brilliance.

Indeed, Glasser s poetic and penetrating harmonica easily cuts through stylistic and geographic boundaries and distances to produce a true global sound world, equally accessible to all open minds and ears. Tourmalet and Part of a Whole, swing with a driving, synth-backed sound that would find a home on any contemporary jazz radio station, contrasted by the no-nonsense classic bop-era renditions of Jackie McLean s quirky Little Melonae" (with Wardell s urbane scats), Thelonious Monk s equally angular I Mean You, and heartfelt ballad performances of the standards "Green Dolphin Street, and How Deep is the Ocean? along with the Brazilian songmaster Ivan Lins ballad, Moas de Afeto.

What Glasser calls the South African crying sound, inspired by his country s fantastic horn players, including Kippie Moeketsi, Barney Rachabane, and Jonas Gwangwa, truly rings through on The Low Six, and African Jazz and Variety, with David Serame, recounting the history of the Apartheid-era musicians. Mjo is a tribute to the late South African drummer Churchill Jolobe, with Pinise Saul s click song vocals. There s also a brilliant rendition of composer Caiphus Semenya s Part of Whole and a Glasser original, Kort Street They all ring with the leader s infectious, Dollar Brand influenced, township-tempoed acoustic piano. The CD s closes with Remembrance a moving and mournful elegy to the late Weather Report co-founder, keyboardist Joe Zawinul, who hired Glasser as a sideman.

As a Johannesburg musician growing up in the seventies, Adam Glasser soaked in all of the myriad indigenous and foreign moods and grooves his city had to offer, when his father gave him his first harmonica at the age of the twelve. Glasser was especially fond of pianist Tete Mbambisa, the sax jive stylists Thomas Phale, Bra Sello, David Thekwane, and the ensemble called The Drive, with saxophonist Henry Sithole. After he moved to London, Glasser worked with the Manhattan Brothers, and he s played and recorded with an impressive arrays of artists including Joe Zawinul, Sting, Eurythmics, the BBC Concert Orchestra, Zizi Possi, John Cacavas, Dominic Miller, Geoff Gascoigne, Antonio Forcione, and Alison Limerick.

All of the places and spaces that Adam Glasser traveled are heard in full on Free at First; an incredible disc that puts both the harmonica and South Africa back on the musical map. Free at First s distinctive melodic cry amply fulfills Adam Glasser s ambition to represent South African jazz voicings on chromatic harmonica, writes Thomas Rome.