Marty Fogel - 1989 - Many Bobbing Heads, At Last

Marty Fogel 

1989 

Many Bobbing Heads, At Last

01. Zavana 8:02
02. Guinea 5:10
03. Through The Screen 4:15
04. Owasco 8:41
05. Never Said Goodbye 2:52
06. Unlikely Beast Slayer 4:53
07. Land Of Giants 5:33
08. Luminous 3:19
09. Cool It 4:19

Bass – Dean Johnson
Clarinet, Saxes – Marty Fogel
Drums – Michael Shrieve
Guitar – David Torn

Recorded at Ztudio Zerkall, Germany, March 1989.

Saxophonist and clarinetist Marty Fogel debuted with the seductively free-jazz Everyman Band, alongside David Torn on guitar, Bruce Yaw on bass and Michael Suchorsky on drums. He contributed Lonely Streets and Fatt Blatt to Everyman Band (march 1982 - ECM, 1982), and Multibluetonic Blues and Celebration 7 to Without Warning (december 1984 - ECM, 1985).

His solo debut, Many Bobbing Heads At Once (march 1989 - CMP, 1989), featuring David Torn on guitar, Michael Shrieve on drums and Dean Johnson on bass, expanded on the ideas of the Everyman Band with a group sound that was even more lyrical and personal. At the same time, Fogel's compositions became even more unorthodox, incorporating and mixing elements of funk, pop, samba, Africa, reggae and bebop music. The elegant saxophone variations on a sunny extroverted theme fire up a texture of exotic funk, dissonant guitar and fusion jazz in the eight-minute Zavana. Owasco is relatively harmless Latin jazz but defused by several strains of minimalist repetition. Shorter vignettes such as Unlikely Beast Slayer betray Fogel's melodic/romantic soul; and Cool It is a flashback to the 1950s, except that saxophone and guitar are deformed like in a nightmare, the the drums explode like fireworks. At the other hand of the spectrum, Land Of Giants is a surreal vision, propelled by pounding drums and alien guitar, in which the saxophone spirals out of control. Fogel coins a style that casually connects jazz tradition, avantgarde idioms and pop stereotypes.