Please Advise is great, especially Good Evening, where Berne explores sensual dimensions of his baritone sax. It was his alto, though, that turned heads in Eagle Rock. Gress, too, was a model of appropriateness, bowing gorgeous low-end foundations or plucking righteous interpolations. These guys know . As usual, the big, swarthy Berne wore only socks on his feet.
Music is touch, too.
But the face, propped by a hand on the chin, is cut off above the nose. One can imagine a long-lashed, vacant stare, but her true mood and identity is kept from us. But the tone of the album is a slate blue muted, dislocated, sweetly melancholy, the topics often deliberately banal. Bewitching chanteuse Val rie Leulliot rarely climbs above a whisper and is often recorded, as are many of the instruments, as if through a distant mic. Electronic flourishes, glips and beeps amplify the subzero vibe and give the sweeping arrangements a postmodern tweak.