This month's Jazz Times (Aug '08) reviewed a CD I am happy to be a part of:
Another Morning CD Review - JAZZ TIMES MAGAZINE
by Scott Albin
On the Seattle quartet's first recording since Hope in 2004, Matt jorgensen + 451 continues to explore a particular brand of jazz-rock fusion that is more subtle than your average pounding, thrashing, over-the-top variety. However, leader Jorgensen's fiery and excessively busy drumming often overwhelms and distracts from the group sound as well as the soloists. Mark Taylor plays mostly a sweet-toned alto, with a lyrical, unhurried and restrained improvisational approach. Keyboardist Ryan Burns has a similarly controlled style on organ, Moog and Fender Rhodes, the latter played with a gorgeous chime-like tone. Bassist Phil Sparks exhibits a thick and penetrating sound and a melodic jazz sensibility in his solos.
Jorgensen's drum work fits best on the more adventurous pieces, such as "Sweetpea," with its industrial-strength, piston-pumping theme, and Lennon/McCartney's "Helter Skelter," with Burns' multi-textured Moog solo and Taylor's soaring alto. Joe Henderson's "Power To The People" is another well-balanced track, featuring excellent solos by special guest trumpeter Thomas Marriott, Taylor on tenor and Burns on Fender Rhodes, while Jorgensen offers his most sensitive and compatible support. The rockish version of Neil Young's "Ohio" also works well, highlighted by guest guitarist Jason Goessl's rousing distortion-laden improv. The other tunes are also full of stimulating solos, including the soulful "New Beginnings," the bluesy "Birds," the mellow "Spectre," the loping "Lock Down" and the plaintive "Entomology." A less intense Jorgensen would have made these five selections even better.
...and this review is from a few Months back:
MUSIC REVIEW:
Thomas Marriott, Crazy: The Music of Willie Nelson
by Thomas Conrad, JazzTimes, May 2008
Thomas Marriott is one of the two first-tier trumpet players to come out of Seattle in the last decade. The other is Cuong Vu. Marriott is the more "inside" of the two, but not by much. Crazy is creatively off-the-wall. It is also a sincerely affectionate tribute. Marriot does not offer bebop versions of Willie Nelson songs but uses them to provoke extravagant acts of the imagination. Some ("Phases & Stages," "You Wouldn't Cross the Street") are freely reharmonized. Another ("I'm Building Heartaches"), hollered contrapuntally by Marriott and soprano saxophonist Mark Taylor, sounds like a Nelson melody arranged by Ornette Coleman. Marriott has serious chops and a luxuriant trumpet sound that he sometimes splashes through a digital-delay system. His group concept is to let the dogs out. His sidemen run wild over country and western. Taylor's soprano brays amid the rasping densities created by Ryan Burns' Moog or Fender Rhodes. Matt Jorgensen's drums surge and storm.
The best pieces are "Crazy," with a lilting, sweet, only slightly ironic Marriott solo and a middle section that goes officially but briefly crazy, and "On the Road Again," a song about happy times on tour. Marriott was on the road with Maynard Ferguson and Rosemary Clooney and "hated every minute of it." He turns the piece into a mordant, deadpan dirge. This album is a kick in the pants.
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