Author: L. Pounds
SourceL Earshot! Dec 2004
“Expansion is an outstanding jazz collage of pounding raw piano chord chunks, beautiful sprinting tonal lines, calculated piano flitter meanderings, bottom-end rumbling disjointed-walking jazz bass lines and expressionist/explorative drum work.”
Author: Ben Watson
Source: The Wire August 2004
“Burrell’s take on jazz tradition is intelligent and wilful, refusing the categories thrust on it by outsiders… This is the record to bring Burrell to the attention of all listeners who crave the unmistakable thump of authenticity.”
2. DAVE BURRELL: Expansion (High Two) The best of the year’s many piano trios, with William Parker and Andrew Cyrille pacing a veteran eclectic whose stride on “They Say It’s Wonderful” is, and whose karate clusters elsewhere persuade you it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that ping.
Author: Ed Hazell
Source: Boston Phoenix
link to article
A sensitive and original interpreter of Ellington and Jelly Roll Morton, as well as a free-jazz player with a clear sense of form and a wide lyrical streak, pianist Burrell has never fit into a neat category. His new trio with bassist William Parker and drummer Andrew Cyrille bridges the entire span of his music and brings it to life with exceptional vibrancy. The whole jazz tradition echoes throughout the collective free improvisation on the title track. Another free piece, “Double Heartbeat” has Burrell’s lightly dancing touch spinning out one long continuously evolving line over the interweaving bass and drums. Parker’s rich, cello-like arco bass, with its resemblance to human sobbing, is featured in duet with the pianist on the wrenching “Crying Out Loud.”
Burrell has always been one of the most history-conscious pianists associated with free jazz. His relaxed solo interpretation of the Irving Berlin standard “They Say It’s Wonderful” sticks close to the melody and displays his debt to Morton and the stride pianists. The trio meld bebop, stride, and free pulse into a rhythmically elusive blend on “Coup d’État.” March rhythms form the basis for an alternately playful and menacing “About Face”; a lilting African-influenced pulse is the foundation of a serene “In the Balance.” There’s a gentle, almost unassuming, quality to Burrell’s playing that belies his conceptual playfulness and formal rigor. In this trio with players of equal ingenuity, he’s made what may be the best recording of his nearly 40-year career.
Author:
Source: Jazz Times
link to article
DAVE BURRELL FULL-BLOWN TRIO
Expansion (High Two)
“My greatest recorded work,” says 64-year-old Dave Burrell on the press release accompanying the Dave Burrell Full-Blown Trio’s Expansion (High Two), and by golly, after listening I would be shocked if it wasn’t. Burrell’s stylistic grasp encompasses the breadth of jazz history, from Dixie to bop and beyond, yet forms an organic, inimitable whole. An early-jazz feel suffuses his work-sometimes explicitly, as on the title track or his solo version of the Irving Berlin standard “They Say It’s Wonderful,” but just as often implicitly. A Jelly Roll-ish bounce is palpable even on such collectively improvised, nontonal pieces as “Double Heartbeat.” Drummer Andrew Cyrille and bassist William Parker lend a decidedly modernist component occasionally inconsistent with Burrell’s broader approach-it’s impossible to imagine Parker playing the Berlin tune as straight as Burrell would require, for instance-yet their instincts prove nearly infallible. Everything works. A terrific album. -Chris Kelsey
Expansion
Dave Burrell — piano
William Parker — bass, kora
Andrew Cyrille — drums
All compositions and arrangements by Dave Burrell (Lanikai Sounds Publishing Co., BMI), except #4 by Irving Berlin (Irving Berlin Music Co., ASCAP), arrangement by Dave Burrell.
Release Date: June 8, 2004
Cover panel photographs from the “West Philadelphia Suite” by Don Camp
Session photographs by Shawn Brackbill
Design by Mariana Reynolds
Produced by Daniel Piotrowski with Dave Burrell and Mark Christman
Recorded by John Rosenberg at Systems Two, live to two-track, Dec. 2003
Mastered by Flam at Mindswerve Studios, Jan. 2004
Recorded during a one-day session in December 2003, Expansion captures the tectonic force realized by the trio on the band’s then-recent fall 2003 tour, but also exposes the introspective sides of the musicians. Featuring a variety of pieces (the band locks into a tight 13/8 time as well as it goes free), Expansion highlights Burrell’s iconoclastic composition style and well as his sensibility for the entire history of jazz.
Burrell penned six new pieces for the session that represent a broad approach to jazz composition. His dynamic range has resulted in a multi-faceted album that showcases his vast skill and style thru its many moods and motifs. The brilliance of the recording isn’t just the variety, but how his kinship with Parker and Cyrille creates a seamless piece of art across the seven tracks.
The title track opens Expansion with Burrell playing stride piano in a composition based on augmented triads. The time shifts in and out 13/8, giving the piece a complex and eccentric elasticity that is extraordinary in modern jazz. For “Double Heartbeat,” Cyrille puts away his cymbals, using only bass drum and toms. The effect is a deep pulsating conversation between Parker and Cyrille, which makes Burrell’s crisp high notes sharp and dangerous. “Cryin’ Out Loud” is a slow, mournful duet between Parker and Burrell. Burrell’s spare notes gracefully match Parker’s bowed bass, creating the lament for the current world political/military situation Burrell intended the piece to be.
After the darkness of “Cryin’,” Burrell’s warmer side appears with a crisp version of an Irving Berlin show tune, “They Say It’s Wonderful.” Burrell reinvents it with his avant-garde approach while retaining the song’s spirit. “About Face” is another composition influenced by recent military conflict. The title is meant by Burrell to represent a turning away from war. Cyrille’s martial beat coupled with the accelerating tempo of the performance creates an overwhelming pleas for peace using the language of warfare – it’s a vision of soldiers running away from battle as fast as they rush in. You can’t much further from the mindset of war than “In the Balance.”
Featuring Parker on kora (a West African harp), the trio creates a calming invocation, accented by Burrell’s understated keyboard dance and the wash of cymbals by Cyrille’s brushes. The title of the album’s closer, “Coup d’Etat” is another allusion to conflict. This time, however, the track’s joyous spontaneity represents a takeover of freedom and exaltation, rather of war and despair.
JazzTimes
{Chris Kelsey, Oct 2004}
“Everything works. A terrific album.”
The Wire
{Ben Watson, Aug 2004}
“Burrell’s take on jazz tradition is intelligent and wilful, refusing the categories thrust on it by outsiders… This
is the record to bring Burrell to the attention of all listeners who crave the unmistakable thump of authenticity.”
Village
Voice
{Francis Davis, Dec 29, 2004}
“Number 2 Jazz album of 2004 : The best of the year’s many piano trios, with William Parker and Andrew Cyrille pacing a veteran eclectic whose stride on ‘They Say It’s Wonderful’ is, and whose karate clusters elsewhere persuade you it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that ping.”
Boston
Phoenix
{Ed Hazell, Oct 29, 2004}
“His new trio with bassist William Parker and drummer Andrew Cyrille bridges the entire span of his music and brings it to life with exceptional vibrancy. The whole jazz tradition echoes throughout the collective free improvisation on the title track.”
Village Voice
“A crowning achievement.”
Earshot!
{L. Pounds, Dec 2004}
“Expansion is an outstanding jazz collage of pounding raw piano chord chunks, beautiful sprinting tonal lines, calculated piano flitter meanderings, bottom-end rumbling disjointed-walking jazz bass lines and expressionist/explorative drum work.”