(04.30.06) For a few years now Thirsty Ear have been releasing a string of albums that team up various MCs with a selection of jazz musicians. Beans’ old crew Anti-Pop Consortium have done one, and most recently the ever-listenable Mike Ladd has had ago. For Beans’ “solo” effort he worked with percussionist Hamid Drake and bassist William Parker and asked them to interpret some rough, programmed beats in an acoustic setting. You have a good idea of what to expect based on that initial idea – a largely instrumental collection of jams, featuring a bit of drum machine material, a few warbling synth tones, a lot of drumming and stand-up bass.
The disappointing result is that what may sound like a futuristic fusion in writing sounds like … well, fusion from the 70s, by and large. Most of this territory has been well covered by jazz artists in the 70s and the addition of some purposely cheap sounding drum machine parts provides no kind of backbone, or texture to the playing of Parker and Drake.
The results are more enjoyable where Beans’ contributions come to the fore, such as the short and relatively straight hip-hop of “Only 4.” Beans lays down some entertaining lines over a floating synth chord while Drake provides a very restrained beat on an acoustic kit. Done with the mic, Beans steps back to make room for Parker’s bass in the last 20 seconds of the track. It’s sincerely enjoyable and in a lot of ways more surprising than a lot of the freer jams that make up the bulk of the album.
Only is out now on Thirsty Ear. (Buy it at Amazon.com)
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