Reviews
“Little Green Men”
LITTLE GREEN MEN
Barnett 5
Distributed by Vitamin Records (Will be available at the Devonport Jazz Weekend)
The bandleader, trombonist, vocalist, jazz broadcaster, and friend of Tasmania, Dan Barnett was asked by Adrian Jackson to bring his band to the Wangaratta Jazz Festival. He collected his regular colleagues, Andrew Robertson on saxophone and Sam Rollins on guitar, and added Ashley Turner on bass and Andrew Dickeson on drums for that project. After the successful performance at the festival they recorded this CD. Nearly 60 minutes of music on 8 tracks take you into full-blooded modern jazz inspired by bebop. On ‘Soup Song’, written by Dan and Andrew Robertson, Dan shows his Jon Hendricks-like scatting ability, while on Nat Adderley’s ‘Old Country’ he conveys the lyrics in the style reminding Kurt Elling and Mark Murphy. They all swing and deliver honest and non-doodling improvisation.
Viktor Zappner, 20 June, 2007
CD Review October 07 Limelight Mgagzine
Why do we have yet another new release re-creating hard-bop, soul jazz and blues from another era? Sam Rollings puts it simply “its music that appeals”.
The idea to record this material was encouraged by an overwhelming response at the 2005 Wangaratta Jazz Festival. Mainly known for his big band vocals, Dan Barnett adds his voice to two of these eight tracks. He tends to channel the scatting of the late Joe ‘Be-Bop’ Lane and his friend and mentor Mark Murphy simultaneously on the original ‘Soup Song’ and Nat Adderley’s ‘Old Country’.
Additionally, other selections are refreshingly obscure. Ellington’s ‘Searchin’ is given soulful treatment, Wayne Henderson’s hard swinging ‘The Young Rabbits’ and NYC guitarist Peter Bernstein’s ‘Little Green Men’ (LGM), the latter showcases Rollings’s easy fluency.
Ashley Turner brings more than just NYC experience to his bass role. His contribution ‘The Girls are Groovin’, the artistic highlight, walks along with a suggestive sassy swagger. The horn lines are uncluttered but sustained in dual harmony, gliding over the rhythm and allowing Rollings’s guitar, the space to tickle the underbelly of the melody.
Original Jazz Crusader Wayne Henderson’s composition is taken at a hopping pace by Robertson’s bright but largely anonymous alto tone while Barnett, especially at this tempo, displays a greater clarity and agility in a more traditional classical jazz setting.
A former flautist, Andrew Dickeson relishes this late 1950’s hard bop style, dropping bombs and riding his heavy cymbals with metronomic precision.
LGM is further proof that there is much more yet to be explored of this post be-bop genre and it’s most competent explorers are not necessarily drawn from the land of its creators.
Rhythms Magazine 2007
Led by Sydney trombonist-vocalist Dan Barnett, this swinging combo sports the talents of Andrew Robertson (alto or tenor saxophone), Sam Rollings (ex D.I.G guitarist) Ashley Turner (bass) and Andrew Dickeson (drums). Whereas Barnett's previous albums for La Brava featured his singing as much as his trombone playing, and put him in a swinging big band context, this is more of a be-bop style combo, with Barnett singing on just two songs. (The former is a scat workout; those who enjoy his suave delivery of a good lyric will have to settle for his version of Nat Adderley's 'The Old Country'.) There are a few originals scattered among numbers borrowed from the likes of Duke Ellington, JJ Johnson and Wayne Henderson. Neat, to the point solos over an always-swinging rhythm section make for a readily enjoyable set.
