October 30, 2009

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JAM POD NOV 21



Brownman Electryc Trio pushing jazz
By ERROL NAZARETH - Sun Media
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Calling your album Juggernaut comes with certain responsibilities.

The listener should get the distinct impression that when the record button was hit, you played like someone threatened to take your instruments away from you forever. You played with fire and intensity, but every track was executed with skill and feeling.

Juggernaut is the debut album from Brownman Electryc Trio, and yes, trumpeter Brownman, drummer Colin Kingsmore and bassist Tyler Edmond get full marks for meeting the above-mentioned criteria.

Their brand of jazz-funk ain't pretty like, say, Incognito's. Visceral and edgy, it recalls the music Miles Davis made in the early '70s.

You can witness this juggernaut when it plays Trane Studio tomorrow night.

Brownman, born Nick Ali, says the trio grew out of Gruvasylum, a hip-hop/jazz outfit that he heads. He noticed that when it was time for him to solo in that group, "the rhythm section would switch to a more interactive jazz approach, but in a funkified context."

Four years back, he got the itch to explore this dynamic further.

"Without the constraints that come from providing vocal sub-structure, bass and drums can take on very different roles and the three of us end up in a sort of dance -- or at least that's what my goal was with the group," he explains. "So my vision for the record was to just capture that dance.

"Moments like that are so fleeting, they occur on stage and then slip away into the ether and I really wanted to have a snap-shot of what we do on stage and I think this disc is very indicative of that."

Best experienced live, the three wisely chose to record Juggernaut live and to capture what Brownman calls "the by-product of deep three-man chemistry.

"I gotta tell you it's a joy to play with these guys!" he says. "It's like we all live in each other's heads, and that's a rare and wonderful thing."

Their version of Oliver Nelson's signature piece, Stolen Moments, is one of six tracks where this connection manifests itself.

The trio plays off each other brilliantly and works in tandem to House-fy Nelson's composition. This one's strictly for the dancefloors.

"Anyone who's ever gotten down at a club to that thump of the kick drum in House music knows what I mean," Brownman says. "I wanted to incorporate some of that element, but against the backdrop of a jazz standard.

"I'd been hearing Stolen Moments like that in my head for a long time," he adds. "I've actually been playing that tune that way for almost a decade, but it's only now that the record button was finally engaged while it happened. Having players I can tell, 'Let's try this with a Deep House King Britt vibe' and them knowing exactly what I mean makes it easy.

"We then just together deconstruct the tune and rebuild it in our own collective vision. And that can be said of all the tunes, not just this one."

Brownman takes quite a bit of heat for what he's doing and for his bombastic nature. He doesn't give a damn, always maintaining he wants to be "a musician of today.

"The Brownman Electryc Trio is very much alive and kickin' and enjoys making a whole lotta noise in celebration of our time here," he says. "And my father -- who, as I type this, is undergoing daily radiation treatment for cancer after major surgery -- is a living reminder that our time on the planet is finite, so we better get busy living.

"And I hope that the act of living life to it's fullest potential, more than anything else, is what people get out of hearing us play."



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