Early American-melodies Of Stephen Foster: Andy Biskin Quartet

With Andy Biskin (clarinet), Pete McCann (guitar and banjo), Chris Washburne (trombone and tuba), and John Hollenbeck (drums and percussion). REVIEWS Someone figured to dedicate an entire album to Stephen Foster sooner or later, and clarinetist Andy Biskin's Early American makes you wonder why it took so long. Biskin proves the innate dignity of songs like 'Old Black Joe' and 'Old Folks at Home' rests in their melodies. The only hint of stiff-legged parody is on the wonderful 'There's a Good Time Coming,' with it's delirious eruptions of polka, klezmer, and Mahavishnu-like distortion and fuzz. Everything on Early American, including an abstracted 'Beautiful Dreamer' and a handful of originals more or less in the Foster manner (the most robust a bumping blues called 'Thin King Thinking'), attests to Biskin's admiration for this vintage material, despite his cheeky approach to it. -Francis Davis, The Village Voice (10 Best CDs of 2006) Andy Biskin seeks to find the threads between old European folk music, early American songforms and the contemporary avant-garde. Biskin's Stephen Foster songbook grew from interpreting Jeanie With The Light Brown Hair cold on the bandstand. It sparked something in the way he'd been composing for his regular quartet, and the result was this mix of Foster interpretations and original compositions. Biskin's quartet twists them so that parts of Camptown Races sounds like Burt Bacharach, Hard Times Come Again No More becomes a Civil War dirge march and There's A Good Time Coming morphs into a funky boogaloo with Pete McCann's guitar wailing overhead. His own six pieces also reach back into the 1800s and snap forward to the present. The title track treads the line between ragtime and klezmer, with Chris Washburne's trombone and John Hollenbeck's ricky-tick drumming propelling the tune forward like an old jitney. Kid Proof clatters into Raymond Scott territory, and winds up with McCann creating chaos. That it's only a minor step from there to a music box rendition of Foster's Old Folks At Home makes Biskin's point that all this stuff -as diverse as it appears -is cut from the same cloth. -James Hale, Downbeat (Four-star review, 10 Best CDs of 2006) Foster's melodies have existed in our culture for so long that they're practically part of the American landscape. Biskin's arrangements honor their lineage while showing how durable they are, letting utterly familiar songs like Oh! Susanna and Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair sound freshly minted. The new writing serves to show how clean, melodic lines can be embraced in unabashedly modern, though never dissonant, ways. -David Greenberger, Signal to Noise Magazine The musicians combine assertive musical forces with Foster's original themes. In the process, they turn the clock forward to collect many of the changes that have taken place since the 19th Century composer's lifetime. Dixieland, bebop, gospel, country and swing enter the picture, interspersed with collective improvisation that runs free and wild. Tuba, electric guitar, wiry percussion and a hot clarinet give the picture plenty of fire. In the process, they reach back and assist Foster in forming impressions of a Southern lifestyle that needed closer examination. I'm not so sure that Stephen Foster succeeded in that mission, but Andy Biskin and his quartet certainly do. They've given us plenty to think about. Biskin's six originals carry out the same kind of enthusiasm without Foster's memorable melodies. His music is energetic, creative, and at the leading edge of jazz's modern mainstream. Recommended for all ages, Biskin's music puts a smile on the face of modern jazz. -Jim Santella, All About Jazz Mixing mania and melancholy in a rather uncanny way, the clarinet player brings a new vibe to Stephen Foster's nuggets on the recent Early American. A gleeful modernist, his arrangements have no problem giving the material a hotfoot while still allowing their melodies and sentiment to radiate. -Jim, Macnie, The Village Voice Early American seems a logical continuation of the geog