REBECCA CLINE – HILARY NOBLE

Enclave Diaspora

Enclave Jazz Records

* * * * Recommended

Noble (ts, congas, djembe, cajon, cowbell); Cline (acc grand p, Fender Rhodes, bombo, claves, cowbell); Fernando Huergo (elec b); Steve Langone (d, chocalho, pandeiro)

Rec: 2007-8

CD Review: Review will appear in the March of “Jazzwise” Magazine London England.

Their previous album (“Enclave” on Zoho) missed this writer’s 2005 Top Ten by just one place. This new effort, on their own label, is possibly even better.

Enclave implies “the enclosed, the separate, the uncommon community”: Diaspora – “speaking to the dispersion of that community, its casting out, its seeding forth”. What this boils down to is one of the tightest, most talented four-piece groups I can remember performing Afro-Atlantic music which embraces Afro-Cuban chant, North American funk, Brazilian chorinho, salsa etc all played with the feel and fire that can only come from musicians totally dedicated to extending the boundaries of jazz and coming up with music that is absolutely distinctive.

Rebecca, given her first grand piano at the age of eleven, is a highly inventive constantly self-challenging keyboardist, while Hilary has a big fat tone on tenor and is equally effective on his flute tracks. Huergo’s electric bass is excited and exciting, while Langone locks into whatever beat is going on and never lets up.

Arguably the standout track is “Iya Modupue”, based on a legendary Afro-Cuban chant, which Chano Pozo utilised with the Dizzy Gillespie big band. The interplay here between tenor, piano, electric bass and percussion is quite astonishing. Two of the other best tracks, all of which have different time meters, often many occurring during the same tune, are the opening “Crossroads” and the closing “Blue Cross”, employing cross rhythms, which inspire some of the most heated playing, while the funk track (“A-Frayed”) shows off Rebecca’s love of P-Funk. Hilary shines on his moving jazz ballad, “Nameless”.

The group’s music is, in its own totally different way, as complex and distinctive as that of Dafnis Prieto, who is deservedly getting so much praise. Cline and Noble deserve similar acceptance. And if you go to New York, the place at which to hear them is The Iridium. Their music is something special.

Tony Hall

Jazzwise Magazine