Erik Truffaz

Item: The Walk of the Giant Turtle
Author: Jeff Cebulski

The Walk of the Giant Turtle

(2003)

Reviewed by Jeff Cebulski

Discogs Apple Music TIDAL Amazon Music Spotify YouTube Music

Label Blue Note RecordsThe Phantom Tollbooth2004

jazz fusion jazz rock

A lot of jazz musicians are heading toward modern beats, creating a market similar to that of the mid-70's when soul jazz and post-fusion material was rampant. Most of it was ugly, and many of today's efforts also wane in the face of true creativity. It's better to listen to those musicians who were already busy trying to hone a new modern sound.

One of those is electrified trumpeter Erik Truffaz, whose third Blue Note CD finally expands on the Fusion Miles motif of his first two albums. Giant Turtle again features his young vibrant quartet, but its past occasional ethereal dissonance is refocused on establishing prog rock connections. Fender Rhodes wiz Patrick Muller is especially versatile as the music's energy climbs and falls among genre, creating a unique synergy that has not been heard since...well...Miles. Bassist Marcello Giuliani uses all of his 70's approaches to electrified rhythm, while drummer Marc Erbetta would have easily commandeered a spot in a Weather Report session. Still, the music sounds fresh and vibrant because it takes itself seriously instead of considering itself a one-off hybrid.

Dapp Theory, the brainchild of Canadian keyboardist Andy Milne, is a band that tries to take advantage of modern beat and language while keeping one foot in the fusion world. For the most part on Y'all, it works, especially when Milne experiments with an improbable two-man tag team of Bruce Cockburn and the DJ Kokayi. Cockburn and Kokayi are joined together on two songs (both Cockburn compositions), and the DJ fills in on three others, evincing the most sincere attempt of jointing jazz and hip hop that I've been able to find. On other tunes, though, the music sometimes falls flat, as though, without any lingual connection, the band fades into fusion Limbo. Harmonicat Gregoire Maret's relatively thin playing bodes better on ballads (like the lovely version of "Con Alma") than on the hipper material, where his notes work like Ritalin to the music's spastic tendencies.