Ohad Talmor Trio - Mise En Place [CD]

Saxophonist and composer Ohad Talmor follows up his albumLong Forms with the Ohad Talmor Newsreel Sextet (Intakt CD341) - a trio recording with his closest musical friends in Brooklyn:guitarist Miles Okazaki and drummer Dan Weiss. Ohad Talmor is the very definition of a cosmopolitan artist, holdingthree passports - American, Swiss and Israeli - while being basedin the polyglot borough of Brooklyn, New York. Although mentoredby the late, great altoist Lee Konitz, Talmor has musical obsessionsthat range far and wide. From iconic tenor saxophonists likeSonny Rollins and Wayne Shorter to such disparate Europeancomposers as Bruckner and Ligeti to theintricacies of Hindustaniclassical music. Talmor has taken this album's title, Mise en place, from a Frenchphrase often used to refer to the preparation and organization ofall ingredients and implements ahead of cooking although, morepertinently, it's also a colloquial French term for rhythmic accuracyin jazz. A fluent, precise "time feel" is a prime trait of his trio withOkazaki and Weiss. The trio plays as one, lithe and muscular. "Despite the technical demands of these pieces," Talmor says,"our goal is to eschew stock licks, to really listen, to really improvise- to always be in the moment with the music. "