Joe McPhee Quartet

McPhee is a personality of considerable range on the tenor saxophone, both in jazz and in improvised music. The saxophone is both an extension and amplifier of his musical desires. His playing is unique, with dazzling technique, a warm, clear tone, and musicality of surprising lightness. Abandoning familiar jazz models and stock phrases, together with Lazro, Boni and Tamitchian he emphasises the function of content and relies on the power of expression. In this quartet the tumbling interplay between guitar and double bass clashes agreeably with the saxophones so that, in the best New Orleans tradition, the four voices relate contrapuntally to each other. This is a full-length, non-idiomatic improvisation programme B from farmhouse cooking to 'haute cuisine'.