By now, three albums out of the gate, Andy Milne has earned the right to stand on his own. The
piano/keyboard player spent seven years with saxophonist Steve Coleman, a ten-disc tenure he
likens (somewhat loftily) to the relationship McCoy Tyner had with John Coltrane--and the sharing of
ideas within that context has touched his music forever. But like Tyner, he has retained his own
voice and found new ways to express it. So enough of that heavy Coleman legacy.
Dapp Theory (in the Cosmic sense or otherwise) has been Milne's working unit for five years
now, though obviously the group rides independently in the saddle. The quartet includes Milne on
keys, Sean Rickman on drums, and Rich Brown on bass; Gérgoire Maret adds color now and then
on harmonica. Contrasting vocals from Bruce Cockburn and Kokayi provide an extra kick to half
these tunes. Cockburn tends to bring a warm and lyrical touch; Kokayi rides on and off the beat,
stabbing and pulsing rapidly.
The pieces on Y'All Just Don't Know depend on quirky rhythms and a heavy underlying
respect for both the downbeat and the backbeat. Their cohesion depends on a sophisticated
rhythmic sensibility. To coax the most energy out of this approach, the group must overlap in just
the right way without ever sounding tight or simplistic. (God forbid!)
As two legs of this balanced table, Rich Brown and Sean Rickman are critical for support. And
they handle the job well. The bassist constantly twists and revises relatively short units in order to
continually goad the unit. Rickman makes frequent use of the bass drum to stab pointedly while he
toys with the beat and the after-beat on the snare, generally keeping it staccato.
Too many easy catchwords can be used to label this music: funk, fusion, hip-hop, modern jazz,
and that lingering M-BASE thing. They all work, but they also fail to capture the essence of the
whole. "Only Clave" lifts off with a fluttering bass run alongside sparse snare hits, Milne
dropping in
easy keyboard textures and Maret working short phrases toward resolution. Two solos later, Kokayi
punches out with a freestyling flair:
It's hot people mango butter
sizzle like the light drizzle rain drops on
Black tops in the mid-summer
And, well, you get the general idea. "Neoparadeigma" treads lightly into retro Jim
Beard
territory; "Bermuda Triangle" goes for broke on shifting, funky rhythmic blocks; "Y 2
K?" ripples ever
onward through its brief three and a half minutes; Dizzy Gillespie's "Con Alma" receives
a
straightahead treatment. When the band pulls back, it tends to stall out now and then, and that's the
only real shortcoming with Y'All Just Don't Know. Those occasional slips into '80s fusion
don't stick around for long.
Dapp Theory may be a difficult earful for listeners who can't handle its unusual combination
of soft lyricism and edgy narrative, simple celebration and raging romps. That presents no problem
for me, and anyone who's open to Milne's fresh outlook will likely find it a revelation.
Visit Concord Records and
Andy Milne on the web.
~ Nils Jacobson
