Search - Roy Nathanson, Anthony Coleman :: I Could've Been a Drum

Intimate Detour

Maria Castro | London, United Kingdom | 08/10/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"'I Could've Been A Drum' was released in 1997 in the Radical Jewish Culture Series of John Zorn's Tzadik label. This is the third collaboration of saxophonist Roy Nathanson (Lounge Lizards, Jazz Passengers) with pianist Anthony Coleman (Selfhaters, Sephardic Tinge) under the nom de guerre 'Lobster and friend'. This time they are joined by their friend guitarist Marc Ribot (and also bassist Brad Jones). Between beautiful melodies of Sephardic inspiration (looking back to the Jewish tradition of pre-Inquisition Spain) and more harsh and angular tunes, this album seems to have a certain ritualistic, almost incantatory nature. As Nathanson himself explains, 'what it has to do with being Jewish is it's three Jewish men [Nathanson, Coleman and Ribot] getting together to meditate on being middle-aged. It has this cantorial quality, it's repetitive in a special way, it seems to have something to do with language. It's not that we're playing an Eastern scale, but something about timbre, about how I approach and play any one note. The songs are sorts of prayers that aren't about swing or jazz.'* One of the best examples of this is certainly 'Devotional Song #1', an introspective musical excursion shared by the three performers. The result is a highly personal and mature work, apparently reaching the exhaustion of the 'Lobster and Friend' association between Nathanson and Coleman. Nonetheless exceptional. However, perhaps not for initiates...* Roy Nathanson in Howard Mandel 'Future Jazz' (New York, Oxford University Press, 1999), p.191"