Pure Heart

SSC1561 2020-06-05

Track List

Inharmonicity - 5:46
Throwing Shade - 11:15
Mayor of Marcellus - 5:06
Forty Year Friend - 8:21
Gerrymandered - 9:41

Musicians

James Carney - piano
Ravi Coltrane - tenor, soprano & sopranino saxophone
Dezron Douglas - bass
Tom Rainey - drums
Stephanie Richards - trumpet - fluegelhorn
Oscar Noriega - bass clarinet & alto saxophone

The combination of concept, effort and the right collaborators typically leads to good things no matter what the goal might be. These elements are especially integral to cohesion within a musical ensemble in performance, especially a group built of musicians who haven’t previously played together. Pianist/composer James Carney was thinking along these lines when he came up with the idea and chose the musicians for his new recording, Pure Heart. // The sextet that Carney put together is quite an assemblage. For the horns, he recruited his longtime friend and saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, bass clarinetist and alto saxophonist Oscar Noriega, and recent collaborator and trumpeter Stephanie Richards. Bassist Dezron Douglas and drummer Tom Rainey met in their first time ever pairing. In fact, most of these players had never played together before, except Coltrane and Douglas and Noriega and Rainey. // The pieces that Carney wrote for the sextet were well conceived but left room for stylistic interpretations from the players. Carney understood that with all of these special conceptualists and stylists that it would serve the music best to allow them to bring their personalities to the service of the pieces. Carney wrote the pieces with his conception of counterpoint through interlocking rhythmic parts and tried to make any bit of abstraction have its own logic. The results exceeded his expectations and have kept him busy writing similar material ever since.