Worthy of greater recognition - 4.5 stars
David J. Ohanlon | Lilyfield, NSW Australia | 03/27/2008
(4 out of 5 stars)
"This is in equal measure slow-burning yet lively, vital yet deeply passionate, soulful jazz with excellent musicians (besides saxophonist David Binney & pianist Edward Simon, Scott Colley (bass) & Brian Blade (drums) deserve special mention) featuring great tone & great interplay. Further, with a stopper put on one-upmanship, there's a real ensemble feel about this disc.
I especially love Simon's piano solos - so fully informed, inventive &, for want of a better term "soulful". Binney is great too - particularly his tone & also his ability to take solos to the very "edge" of melodicism without straying into "noise". However, I wasn't quite so taken with the wordless vocals on a couple of tracks (as they mostly came across as half-baked attempts at Brazilian inflection) nor the guitar break in "Impossible Question", but seeing as by the same token these weren't annoying either no big deal......
The only track that on the whole I really couldn't get into was the polyrhytmic "El Parrandero" - too percussive & edgy for my tastes. On the flip side to this, "Amnesia", "Home" & "24 Miles to go" are excellent (with Binney, not for the first time on the disc, just pulling back from what could have been a gratingly "fiery" & "furious" solo on the last-mentioned).
All in all, well worth a listen."
ANOTHER VERY GOOD COLLABORATION
K. Prousalis | drama GREECE | 04/19/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Both DAVID BINNEY /ALTO SAX and EDWARD SIMON /PIANO are very serious and talented jazz musicians and have proved it many times .They collaborate once more in OCEANOS using the same recipient like AFINIDAD modern jazz with latin flavour .Although the effort is good it does not have the necessary vitality and strength of some of their previous recordings .HOWEVER i give five stars because of the skillful and excellent playing from all the members of the band ."