Two Great New Reviews for 'I Love Paris'
Last Updated Saturday, 03 November 2007
The reviews keep coming in for I Love Paris! I'm very excited by our two latest ones. Here's what All About Jazz and Cadence have to say about the album:
"It’s the quiet ones you have to watch for. Not the furtive loner, living behind drawn shades at the end of your cul-de-sac;but the music that crawls into your ear on little cat feet and whispers, “This is not what you’re used to. This... is something else.” I Love Paris sends that message loud and clear, using the Cole Porter standard as a bridge to a perspective that is as beautiful as it is harsh. Saxophonists Brian VanArsdale and Nathan Heleine man the Dan Loomis Quartet’s front line, with no keyboards to blunt the edges or widen the focus. But where Gerry Mulligan’s super-cool piano-free recordings with Chet Baker cooled the head and lowered the pulse, VanArsdale and Heleine’s unsettling, multi-faceted dynamic is not for the timid, and is wholly satisfying for those who want to peek outside the box. The lyrics to “I Love Paris” are typical Porter, an international bon vivant who celebrated the romance inherent in the City of Lights. The DLQ’s take is entirely different: driven by Loomis’ steel cable-taut bass line and Jared Schonig’s volcanic percussion, Heleine delivers a flat opening melody that delivers that lyric with a palpable cynicism. As the band sinks its fangs deeper into the piece, we see the parts of Paris where tourists fear to tread and the Left Bank is a work of fiction. I Love Paris chooses the hard road over the easy path every time. VanArsdale’s “Hildy Speaks (Jon’s Lament)” is a physical impossibility—a dirge-like bossa nova, broadcasting loss in the face of Heleine’s light lines. On the other side of VanArsdale’s coin is “Lakesha,” a funky Second Line composition that yanks you out of your seat while staying rooted in the seamier areas of New Orleans. “Pied Noir” has got a great beat, but you’d look like you were having a fit if you tried to dance to it, while “The Thrill Is Gone” is light-years from B.B. King’s majestic original, but its message is the same: it’s over, and so is the magic. For all the light
and heat in the front line, the real business happens in the rhythm section. Schonig’s percussion has such drama and
power, even in quiet moments like the Eastern-flavored “For Harry Carney” (where Schonig’s hand-drumming wraps around Heleine’s snake-charmer alto) or Loomis’ stripped-down take on Coltrane’s “Dear Lord.” Loomis’ no-nonsense bass has the whip-crack feel of Dave Holland, double-teaming you with style and substance. Loomis’ solo moments—on “Thrill” and on the contemplative “Goodbye”—are stunning in both approach and result; by and large though, he is content to steer his unit through waters that are challenging for both the players and the listener.I Love Paris is more proof that great things come from small labels. Like the early Impressionists, the Dan Loomis Quartet has created a series of portraits that may not be pretty, but they sure are real. As the title implies, I Love Paris, especially when it sizzles, which is all the
time."- J Hunter, All About Jazz
"Since Dan Loomis moved to New York from Rochester in 2004, he has been establishing himself through a variety of
engagements there as his reputation has grown. As well it should. On his debut album, I Love Paris, Loomis projects
leadership on all of the tracks, though most of the melodic duties are performed by saxaphonists Brian VanArsdale and Nathan Heleine. Without a chorded instrument in his group, and with the strong support of drummer Jared Schonig,Loomis’ quartet is solidly percussive, laying down varying rhythms over which the saxophonists can improvise. Loomis reworks the standards like the title song, the resonance of his bass vamp setting up the feeling for it from the beginning.
When Schonig comes in with his second-line rhythm, the occasion is created for an exuberant version that becomes their own, not borrowing from anyone else’s. Similarly, “The Thrill Is Gone” is refashioned into a swirling mesh, allowing VanArsdale and Heleine to raise the interpretation beyond give-and-take into an improvisational synthesis suggesting the influence of John Coltrane. That influence becomes evident when the quartet plays John Coltrane’s “Dear Lord,” which oddly enough, is more straightforward as tenor saxophonist VanArdales takes the unadorned lead, Heleine supplying the responding harmonic lines. “Goodbye” begins with Loomis’s mournful solo, slow and ruminative, before it grows into a fully
realized statement. The original compositions are equally engaging. Loomis’ “Pied Noir,” for instance, relies on his forceful bass lead with an intriguing displacement of the beat that characterizes the piece as the horns engage in mid-range colloquy. Loomis’ quartet retains listener interest with extroversion and a unique perspective. I Love Paris introduces a forceful and creative bass player with much promise for the future."- Bill Donaldson, Cadence
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