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Bassist's Septet Cooks in Concert
By Bob Groves, Music Reviewer
Albuquerque Journal

Backstage behind the closed curtain at the KiMo Theater, bassist Alan Lewine thanked his colleagues while they shook his hand in congratulations. Moments before about 200 happy jazz fans had given them a standing ovation and they had responded by marching an encore of "The Saints Go Marching In" around the theater.

Lewine is from Wheeling, West Virginia whose Alan Lewine Septet cooked ecstatically through a one-night-only concert of outstanding, tight 'n' tasty mainstream jazz Friday evening at the KiMo.

The young Southwest musicians Lewine assembled for this gig were Santa Fe pianist Kevin Zoernig, Denver saxophonist Peter Barbeau, University of New Mexico saxophonist and flutist Bill Wood, Las Vegas bass trombonist Phil Arnold, Los Alamos trumpeter Glen Gross and Cerillos drummer Cal Haines.

The sad thing is that this septet was strictly a pick-up band which immediately disbanded after the on-shot evening. Happilly, the concert was recorded and will be released on Owlsong Records.

Because in Albuquerque, where good commercial jazz is practically nil (aside perhaps from the group Alma), the septet's performance was one of the vital jazz events of the past couple years. (Appearances by the World Saxophone Quartet and composer David Baker of the 21st century Bebop Band were a couple of others.)

But for Lewine the KiMo performance has been a dream come true. "I've got to say that this has been one of the most thrilling nights of my life," Lewine told his audience. "I'm really flattered that you came to hear me play my music."

And it really was his music. Lewine not only led the band and slugged away with some inspired amplified acoustic double bass playing, but he was the composer and arranger, too. He also hired the hall (the KiMO Blue Notes series co-sponsored the program), and did his own publicity down to putting up posters around town.

Lewine's dozen charts for his "little big band" were closely structured in their main thematic statements and harmonized ensemble back-ups behind the soloists. They also gave each performer ample opportunity to improvise.

The music itself was an amalgam of swing, bop, blues, Latin, funk, rock fusion, Afro-Cuban and one all-out blast of orchestrated bedlam which recalled Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention tributes to composer Edgard Varese. The main traditions at work here were the bebop of "Bird," "Dizzy," Monk, Mingus, and the Miles Davis "cool school." Overall, the loose, intelligent excitement of the septet's playing was reminiscent of the V.S.O.P Quintet of former Miles sidemen during the late 1970s.

The septet's introductory three-chord-change blues, "We'll Have Fun," was followed by "Nefertiti's Dream," an atmospheric piece which opened with a bass cadenza (as did several of the tunes) and featured and exotic soprano sax solo by Barbeau. Zoernig, a 1984 recipient of the Bill Evans International Jazz Scholarship, performed Lewine's lovely "Walt for Bill" solo dedicated to the late pianist.

This was an ensemble of musicians who enjoyed listening to each other and worked well together to the pulse of Hines' sensitively phrased "melodic" drumming

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