{"id":935,"date":"2009-03-17T09:15:56","date_gmt":"2009-03-17T14:15:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hightwo.com\/ht\/?p=935"},"modified":"2009-03-17T09:15:56","modified_gmt":"2009-03-17T14:15:56","slug":"reviews-hna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/reviews-hna\/","title":{"rendered":"Reviews – HNA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Author: Peter Margasak
\nSource: Chicago Reader
\nlink to this article<\/a><\/p>\n

Over the years Warn Defever, the native of Livonia, Michigan, who\u2019s been the brains behind His Name is Alive<\/a> for nearly two decades, has demonstrated an almost schizophrenic array of musical directions, using his group to enfold his interests in pop, soul, country, folk, rural blues, and electronica, among many other things. I\u2019m always a bit skeptical about such eclecticism. It\u2019s natural for people, and especially musicians, to be interested in lots of stuff, and curious about things they haven\u2019t experienced, but there\u2019s a big difference between being interested in something and deciding to practice it. Defever is a dilettante with a capital D, and sadly, lots of his cross-cultural endeavors have come up rather empty.<\/p>\n

For this reason I was pretty leery of the forthcoming Sweet Earth Flower: A Tribute to Marion Brown<\/em> (High Two). HNIA planned the homage to be a one-off event, a 2004 concert at the University of Michigan Museum of Art, but Defever was so happy with the results he decided to record the music (three of the eight pieces on the album are taken from that performance). Brown<\/a> is one of the more peculiar figures to emerge during the 60s free-jazz explosion, perpetually overlooked despite killer albums for ESP, Impulse, Fontana, Freedom, and ECM. He\u2019s always been a deeply lyrical player\u2014coming out of an environment that frequently stressed energy and raw emotion over well-considered melodicism\u2014but he could also go out with the best of them. His work in the 70s leaned toward more meditative terrain\u2014hell, he even collaborated with Harold Budd<\/a>!\u2014and it\u2019s this material that HNIA focuses on (although they do also tackle mid-60s gems like \u201cJuba Lee\u201d and \u201cCapricorn Moon). Defever wisely enlisted the help of some of his friends in the Ann Arbor Afrobeat band Nomo<\/a>, for whom he\u2019s produced some records: leader (and saxophonist) Elliot Bergman and trumpeter Justin Walter do a nice job handling much of the solo activity, but the star of the show is Erik Hall, with his warmly undulating electric piano parts.<\/p>\n

Brown loves to use ostinato figures\u2014repetitive little licks casting an air of hypnosis for the soloist\u2014and HNIA transforms them into something warmer and more spellbinding, albeit less rhythmically interesting. The rhythm section here doesn\u2019t mix things up very much, which sometimes gives the music a static quality. Still, the album is much better than I expected it to be, and it does manage to shine a different, yet deeply empathetic light on Brown as a composer and conceptualist. A portion of the album’s proceeds benefit the Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

HNIA plays Schubas<\/a> tomorrow night, but I expect they\u2019ll draw far more repertoire from a new album of original material, XMMER<\/em> (Reincarnate)\u2014which I haven’t heard\u2014rather than the Marion Brown tribute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author: Peter Margasak Source: Chicago Reader link to this article Over the years Warn Defever, the native of Livonia, Michigan, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_eb_attr":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[47,84,85,50,60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artists","category-his-name-is-alive","category-ht014","category-releases","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","acf":[],"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1985,"url":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/hnia-remembers-marion-brown\/","url_meta":{"origin":935,"position":0},"title":"HNIA remembers Marion Brown","author":"Daniel Piotrowski","date":"October 20, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"We are sad to hear last week of the passing of jazz icon Marion Brown. Our friend, Warn Defever of His Name is Alive, talks about the influence and importance of Marion in MetroTimes Detroit: http:\/\/blogs.metrotimes.com\/index.php\/2010\/10\/warn-defever-remembers-marion-brown\/","rel":"","context":"In "Artists"","block_context":{"text":"Artists","link":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/category\/artists\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":940,"url":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/reviews-hna-3\/","url_meta":{"origin":935,"position":1},"title":"Reviews – HNA","author":"admin","date":"March 17, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Author: Jason Ferguson Source: Orlando Weekly Link to this article Many fans of His Name Is Alive may be struck by the oddity of their favorite dreampop act delivering an album of cosmic free-jazz. But HNIA main man Warn Defever\u2019s studio, Brown Rice, isn\u2019t named after a Don Cherry album\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Artists"","block_context":{"text":"Artists","link":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/category\/artists\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":937,"url":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/reviews-hna-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":935,"position":2},"title":"Reviews – HNA","author":"admin","date":"March 17, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Author: By Jon Dale Source: Dusted Magazine Link to this article His Name Is Alive - \"Sweet Earth Flying\" (Sweet Earth Flower - A Tribute To Marion Brown) On Xmmer, as with other His Name Is Alive albums, head prefect Warn Defever builds a model of his universe, populates it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Artists"","block_context":{"text":"Artists","link":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/category\/artists\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":948,"url":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/reviews-hna-7\/","url_meta":{"origin":935,"position":3},"title":"Reviews – HNA","author":"admin","date":"March 17, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Author: Troy Collins Source: All about Jazz Link to this article Sweet Earth Flower: a tribute to Marion Brown is His Name Is Alive's meditative ode to the work of the under-sung free jazz saxophonist. Veterans of the American rock underground, His Name Is Alive has been exploring various musical\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Artists"","block_context":{"text":"Artists","link":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/category\/artists\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":950,"url":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/950-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":935,"position":4},"title":"Reviews – HNA","author":"admin","date":"March 17, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Author: mpardaiolo Source: Audiversity Link to this article \u201cOrnette Coleman is the same as Charlie Parker, but he did it a different, the opposite way. Charlie Parker did everything that he did based on knowing harmony and chords. Ornette Coleman did everything he did based on knowing how to reach\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Artists"","block_context":{"text":"Artists","link":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/category\/artists\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":954,"url":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/954-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":935,"position":5},"title":"Reviews -HNA","author":"admin","date":"March 17, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Author: Trevor Tremaine Source: Glamor Profession Link to this article The occasional inspired detours aside, the venerable Detroit-area indie rock institution His Name is Alive are more commonly heralded for their playfully experimental, soulful dream pop. Taking heed, I presumed the \u201ctribute\u201d of the disc\u2019s title to be of a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Artists"","block_context":{"text":"Artists","link":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/category\/artists\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}