{"id":5812,"date":"2023-05-01T22:54:18","date_gmt":"2023-05-02T03:54:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/?p=5812"},"modified":"2023-08-29T12:16:14","modified_gmt":"2023-08-29T17:16:14","slug":"avram-fefer-juba-lee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/avram-fefer-juba-lee\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Avram Fefer\u2019s \u2018Juba Lee\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

F\u200b\u200bor the last quarter of the 20th century, Italian labels Black Saint and Soul Note issued an influential series of recordings by Black American artists, including the World Saxophone Quartet and its members Hamiet Bluiett, Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake, and David Murray. These records were hardly blowing sessions, but their loose-limbed vibe brought the expressive freedom of the bandstand and the clarity and discipline of the studio into a memorable balance. That vibe is very much present on Avram Fefer\u2019s Juba Lee<\/em> (Clean Feed, 2022). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The nine compositions, all by Fefer, give the leader and his foil, Marc Ribot, plenty of elbow room to stretch out. The leader uses his to rhapsodize over modes with a forthright and slightly husky tone, mostly on tenor saxophone. Ribot is often a second horn on the front line, twinning with Fefer on the heads. The template is established on the opening \u201cShowtime,\u201d a bouncing groove in eight plus six where a rough-toned Fefer occasionally sounds like a jazz guy slipping into R&B tenor territory while Ribot comps like a rock player might on a jazz session (for the record, Ribot has asserted that as a lefty playing right-handed, he couldn\u2019t be a jazz guitarist if he tried). His solos are almost always on the blues scale, and his tone defiantly acid-dipped. He\u2019s done this sort of thing before, most notably on Spiritual Unity<\/em> (Pi Recordings, 2005) and Live at the Village Vanguard <\/em>(Pi Recordings, 2014).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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