Cover of the album being discussed (from its Bandcamp Web page)
This coming Friday Truth Revolution Records will release Inner Light, alto saxophonist Mike DiRubbo’s tenth album as a leader. He has assembled a new quartet for the occasion, performing with Brian Charette on a Hammond B3 Organ, guitarist Andrew Renfroe, and drummer Jongkuk Kim. As is frequently the case, Bandcamp has already created a Web page for processing pre-orders of either the compact disc album or an MP3 download. Two of the eleven tracks, “Love the Same” and “Inner Light” are currently available for “preview listening.”
The album’s relatively brief liner notes (which, sadly, have not been included on the Bandcamp Web page) refer to the quartet’s tracks as constituting “an hour of storytelling, where new facets of their music-making are revealed and shared life experiences … are celebrated.” Having spent considerable time during my “last life” investigating relationships between narratology and communication in the workplace, I fear that I have to raise my “Spock eyebrow” whenever I encounter the noun “storytelling.” I would say that all of the tracks fall short of narrative as we know it; but, on a broader scale, DiRubbo could not be more generous in allowing all of the players solo riffs which reveal different aspects of their personalities.
Nevertheless, from a personal point of view, I prefer listening to music with sharper edges, so to speak. I am sure there are any number of listeners that prefer affability. However, much of what I learned through listening to jazz involved hard bop at its hardest; and, as a result, I seldom listen to jazz when I want to be soothed.
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