Cram Orchestra, Paul - Campin Out
SKU
VICTO078
The commitment and camaraderie in the group are extraordinarily high, something a listener immediately picks up. Above all there's a sense that Cram's music is leading somewhere. It's a voyage into the unknown in which familiar terrain is oddly distorted, a body of conventions glimpsed in funhouse mirrors, a series of new textures that frame their own instability. There's variety, too, from the subtle textures of clarinet and cello that grace Kafka's Chair" to the wit of "Trouble in Paradise" where there's literally Ayler-wit to Zappa-wit. His greatest gift as a composer, though, is his ability to develop continuous melody, lines that seem to embrace and develop through the improvised solos as well as the writing. That's jazz composing of the highest order, something beyond notation, and testament to the special chemistry that Cram enjoys with this band." -Stuart Broomer, July 2001 [Victo]