Mike Fahn
Close Your Eyes...and Listen
© 2002 Mike Fahn (634479295720)
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Mainstream jazz with stops along the way of reggae, funk and fusion all wrapped up by a virtuoso valve and slide trombonist.
tracks
- 1 Without Changes
- 2 Will Call
- 3 Survivor's Suite
- 4 Heart Forest
- 5 The Burren
- 6 Get Sparky
- 7 On Time
- 8 Close Your Eyes
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In the entire history of jazz, only a handful of musicians have succeeded in achieving improvisational control of this demanding vehicle (valve trombone). Fahn seems to have all the requisites: a bronzed, burnished sound, technique and ideas to spare, with each note in the right place at the right instant, and a crisp attack that is peculiar to this instrument. - LEONARD FEATHER
Close your eyes and listen to valve trombonist extraordinaire Mike Fahn's Close Your Eyes . . . and Listen -- but don't be surprised if your ears perk up right away. Because far from being simply dreamy or inducing languorous passivity, Fahn and his band conjure up engaging, invigorating music of vivid images and piquant moods. They have the narrative command of storytellers who deal in what's tangible rather than abstract. They dare to imagine, but with the presence of mind of astute observers whose eyes are open wide.
Michael Jeff Fahn is, after all, both a music-maker and a practical man. He was born in 1960, and has already absorbed a lifetime of music: Michael Charles Fahn, his father, was a Brooklyn Boy's High School-trained jazz drummer, and his mother was an avid jazz fan, too, so he was exposed in utero to recordings by pianists Bill Evans and Oscar Peterson, saxophonist Stan Getz, and 'bonemen such as Bob Brookmeyer and J. J. Johnson. Since childhood, Mike has been a largely self-taught player and composer, and he's never stopped learning. He credits West Coasters Don Menza, Dick Berk and Maynard Ferguson as some of his most influential early associates, also cites recent employers Bill Mobley, Tom Harrell, and Andrew Hill, and has obviously gotten a lot from his wife Mary Ann McSweeney, a noted bassist who contributed to three of this album's outstanding songs. In recognition of his Los Angeles-based achievements, in 1987 Mike received the coveted Shelley Manne Outstanding New Talent Award given out by the Los Angeles Jazz Society.
Mike began on trumpet at age seven, then switched to baritone horn. He was given a valve trombone by his dad, who still loves the music of Brookmeyer, when he was 11, and he took on the more common slide trombone a couple of years later. Relocating with his parents and three younger siblings (two brothers and a sister, all now professional actors) from Huntington, Long Island to Huntington Beach in Orange County, California at age 16, Fahn was immersed in the L.A. big band and small group studio, concert and touring scene by the time he was 20. He worked with Shorty Rogers, Bob Cooper, Jack Sheldon, and even Chet Baker on one concert.
"I enjoyed the lyrical, melodic sense of those musicians," he says. "L.A.'s a wonderful place. But I came back to New York to play creative music. Here you're appreciated and encouraged to do your own thing."
In New York, Fahn has established himself on the circuit of stages at 55 Bar, Cornelia Street Cafe, Small's, Smoke, Detour, and City Hall Restaurant, also playing at the Jazz Standard, Iridium, the Village Vanguard, Birdland and the Blue Note. He's played with the Jazz Composers Collective at its monthly New School University gig, and he's a teacher with the New Jersey Performing Arts Center's Jazz for Teens program. Mike released Steppin' Out, a limited edition album with bassist John Patittucci, in 1989, and has a considerable discography (see it on his website www.MikeFahn.com) but considers Close Your Eyes. . . and Listen his true debut.
"I conceived of this album as a whole, to showcase my range," he says. And so he has. His first smart move was to assemble a fine supporting cast, with keyboardist Charles Blenzig on six of eight tracks, tenor saxophonist Rick Margitza and guitarist Steve Cardenas alternating for four each, and everybody joining him, bassist-producer Jay Anderson and drummer Tim Horner on the blowout "Get Sparky."
Blenzig, pianist-leader of the weekly afterhours jam session at Manhattan's Blue Note, proves to have a fine touch and invaluable flexibility. Margitza, a record session leader in his own right, distinguished himself for Fahn as a member of Maria Schneider's Orchestra, as did drummer Horner. Cardenas, says Mike, is like Margitza in that he "has his own vocabulary, sounds like no one else melodically, and really takes care of business with the choke part of 'Sparky.'" Anderson is the project's lynchpin; he's been a friend of Fahn's for 25 years, and as Mike says, "Jay's a marvelous everything: writer, arranger, melodic and rhythmic accompanist. You know I think he's a great bassist, since I'm married to a bassist. That's okay," he laughs. "Mary Ann understood."
Indeed, she must have -- considering the contributions she's made to her spouse's effort in the matter of well-crafted repertoire. "Without Changes,"the opening tune, is by McSweeney, and aptly introduces the album's overall aura of dark reverie. She helped Fahn piece together ideas for "The Burren," inspired by beautiful Irish cliffs they discovered while traveling, which Mike depicts by constructing a luscious four-trombone choir through overdubbing (he uses his valve-bone for the solo section between the choir parts, which were created using a slide-bone). Mary Ann also came up with the serious backbeat groove of "Get Sparky," a post-electric Miles number with a winding theme taken from one of Mike's improv.
Fahn and Anderson sequenced these key tracks amid contrasting pieces: the bassist's "Will Call," an up tempo, updated-bop romp on which Mike and Rick bounce licks off each other; Keith Jarrett's evocative "Survivor's Suite," of which Mike explains, "I was most interested here in feeling the notes, imparting the melody, slowing down the ideas -- so they'd come"; Margitza's reggae "Heart Forest," with its minorish introduction and mysterious pull-ups; Anderson's mellow hardbop blues "On Time," and the lovely standard "Close Your Eyes."
In sum, it's a good trick to shape 55 musical minutes to comprise so much diversity and yet retain one overall temperament. And Fahn's invitation to Close Your Eyes. . . and Listen is liberating, too. But who can lay back when Mike's laying out his substantive lines with the precision of a trumpeter and fluidity of a saxophonist, then smearing and ripping like the baudiest of gutbucket 'bonemen? Who will fail to sit up when Cardenas shadows him with pearly pluckings, or Margitza harmonizes at his side like a brother with another thought? Who will not be stirred by Horner's deft stick figures, while being soothed by Blenzig's subtle ambiances or elusive, enlightening solos? When Anderson walks the bass, one almost has to stride at his side.
So don't worry too much about the titular instruction -- at least, not the "close your eyes" part. Don't get stuck on how Mike Fahn is the virtuoso of the valve trombone; dig how sweetly musical he and his band are. Their music swings with credibility and feeling. You've got eyes and ears, heart and mind. Do listen, with all that.
Howard Mandel
reviews
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Nothing Howard Mandel wrote in his review is an exaggeration.
author: Tommy AkinThis CD needs to be heard. I like everything about it. I especially like the fact that every musician can carry the load when called on. There are times when the piano is so sparse you can hardly tell it's there, but if it weren't there something would definately be missing.