CALLING ALL SPIRITS

1. orange was the color of her dress, then blue silk

2. african interlude

3. mothers of the veil

4. guinea

5. going nowhere fast

6. loss (for flo)

7. calling all spirits, calling all poets

Editorial Reviews

About the Artist
Saxophonist/composer Avram Fefer steps forth with his first release as a leader---a strong and purposeful musical statement entitled ‘Calling All Spirits’ (Cadence 1123). It is a summation of the past decade of Fefer's career, capturing a set of tunes he has performed with a variety of musicians all over the world, while also documenting his current working trio which has been playing together frequently in New York City.

Says Avram about his work: "I want my listeners to be both emotionally involved and musically challenged. The music should hit the mind and the gut of the audience. Hopefully when you listen to my music, my love of saxophone and sound will draw you in, while the interplay and provocative storytelling will keep you interested. I embrace the tradition of expression and experimentation found in the music of people like Charles Mingus, Dewey Redman and Henry Threadgill. I love groove."

After receiving a degree in psychology at Harvard, Avram’s formative jazz years were spent in Boston studying with great teachers like George Russell and Ran Blake and jamming at the underground bebop club, Wally‚s with up-and-comers Roy Hargrove, Antonio Hart, and Jeff Parker.

Before moving to New York, he spent five years abroad in Paris where he benefitted from the frenchmen’s love of art and music, and where his jazz background merged with the great African and Arabic music he heard in the streets and clubs of Paris. Most importantly, Avram was heavily influenced by the creative expatriate scene he joined there, playing with and learning from musicians like Archie Shepp, Steve Lacy, Bobby Few, Graham Haynes, Jack Gregg, John Betsch, Sunny Murray, and Rasul Siddik among others. Within this dynamic scene, Fefer grew as an artist and a saxophonist, further developing the bold, rich, expansive saxophone tone he was searching for.

Says Fefer of his time in Paris: "I benefitted tremendously from playing with and around those masters; my knowledge of the jazz tradition was broadened by the great players I worked with and heard in Paris. They encouraged me to develop my own sound, while I continued to work on my mastery of jazz fundamentals."

While in Paris, Avram recorded with rap music innovators The Last Poets, and was a founding member of the acid jazz group Beigels Daisy Toasts, which had a chart-topping version of Freedom Jazz Dance( Eddie Harris) in London as well as one of the top selling jazz records in France (1994). He also put his own unit together, Avram's Acid Base, which included the great African keyboard master Sheik Tidiane Seik and reflected Fefer's love of the music of early 70's Miles‚ Ornette Coleman's Prime Time, and the music of nigerian saxophonist Fela Anikulapo Kuti.

Since moving to New York in '95, Avram has fully embraced the diversity found in the big city. He has a thriving private teaching practice and has performed with dancers, poets, painters, electronic and visual media, as well as theater and computer-interactive situations. He continues to participate in mainstream, progressive, funk, and free jazz situations performing with such notable musicians as David Murray, Fred Hopkins, Jack Walrath, Frank Lacy,Reggie Washington, Graham Haynes, James Hurt, William Parker, and Tony Allen (Fela‚s drummer), among many others. "Calling All Spirits" is Fefer’s personal and dynamic summing up of his musical voyage thus far and unites three musicians who truly rejoice in playing together.

He is joined by two musicians of great strength and sensitivity: bassist Eric Revis (Branford Marsalis, Billy Harper, Orrin Evans), who simultaneously anchors and propels the music, and drummer Igal Foni (Anthony Coleman, Michael Attias), about whom Fefer says "he knows my playing almost better than I do."

CALLING ALL SPIRITS,avram fefer trio

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Tracks:

orange was the color of her dress, then blue silk
african interlude
mothers of the veil
guinea
going nowhere fast
loss (for flo)
calling all spirits, calling all poets

Customer Reviews:

PhD exams.......2004-07-16

This is Avram Fefer's first session as a leader. It serves as a rite of passage that is typical of what makes creative improv music so wonderful and strange. Read the bio above. School years in the Boston area, five years in Paris and, at the time of this recording, another four years in New York. This is a fairly typical apprenticeship for this type of music. This is also why there are so many people in this type of music who have truely mastered their instruments. The truth is that it simply takes time and much effort to get this good.
He is joined on this CD by his working band at the time- Eric Revis on the bass and Igal Foni on the drums.
But this is really Fefer's CD. He penned four of the tunes with the others being covers of standards by Charles Mingus (everything Mingus wrote should be considered a standard), Ornette Coleman (Mothers of the Veil), and Don Cherry (Guinea). Fefer's is the dominant voice in all the tunes and he carries it off beautifully. Part of his strength comes from his tone which it different times reminds me of Joe Henderson, Clifford Jordan or even John Gilmore. His playing has the same quality the Jordan has of singing a melody so soulfully that it stays in your mind's ear for days.
That last sentence gets to his next strength. Fefer largely eschews extended technique on this CD in favor of simply playing the heck out of melodic variations. He is confident in his ability to come up with something new and interesting at every moment and he largely succeeds.
Finally there is another aspect of his aesthetic that is worth remarking on. He is calling out to the spirits of the sax trio tradition on this CD, that is obvious. He is staking his claim in the lineage of Rollins, Henderson, Lovano, Garazone, Eskelin and a few others who have made great art from within the trio format. But he obviously wants his music to be accessible to the audience. Challenging, expansive, yes but also something that people can groove on.
This CD was released in 2000. Since then he has released three others, the most recent being Shades Of The Muse on the CIMP label. Go to his web site for sound bites of all his recordings and for more info on the man.
As for me, my fellow Amazonians, it comes down to this- the only real competition for this debut comes from a Geoff Bradfield CD, Rule of Three, that I recently reviewed. I can only hope that more of you take a chance on these two youngish(within the jazz context) players and support their music. This is strong music with the promise of only getting better.

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