Heard it on the radio, had to get it
Philip Hart | San Francisco, CA United States | 03/08/2010
(4 out of 5 stars)
"I'm not well-listened in jazz - I've just recently started getting into McCoy Tyner and Coltrane and various Blue Note CDs - so this review is not aimed at everyone.
I heard "Song For F" on the radio recently and assumed it was a classic track by some major artist. It starts with a brief, tense, dark phrase on drums and piano, then Postma comes in with a strong riff (maybe a major extension of the intro?) that starts a fluent, brightening dialogue between alto and soprano (which turns out to be a monologue, since apparently one of the saxes is dubbed, somewhat disconcertingly and disappointingly, but anyway it's really lovely). This section is very expressive and attractive - optimism, drive, nonchalance, perhaps nostalgia, maybe some funk. At the end it finds its way back to the intro mood. Maybe it is a classic track after all.
The rest of the album isn't as compelling to me. I quite like "The Eye of the Mind", though there is one moment where the sax is phased for some reason and the electric piano doesn't seem called for. I also liked most of the rest, in particular Postma's tone and the fine piano and rhythm section. I get the sense that Postma decided to show how many different things she can do - "Crazy Stuff" starts with what sounds like a very old standard then becomes quite modern to my ears, for example. This variety comes perhaps at the expense of concentrating on what she's best at. There are two pieces that I don't like: the slow uninteresting if intermittently pretty "The Line" and the Villa-Lobos arrangement. The latter doubles the sax line with a vocalise which sounds a lot like the theremin intro to the old Star Trek tv show and generally drags. The next-to-last track, "Searching and Finding", however, is another standout, combining lyricism and virtuosity.
I'd give _The Traveller_ 3.5 stars but I'll round up since "Song for F" is so good. And perhaps it's a consequence of having no other jazz albums recorded since the early seventies, but the sound quality on this CD seems extremely good to me. The CD is about 56 minutes long, so skipping the uninteresting tracks 4 and 5 you still get 40 minutes of quite varied good (and, in the case of "Song For F", great) jazz."
Track Listings (9) - Disc #1