Musicians: Jeb Bishop: trombone; Jaimie Branch: trumpet; Tim Daisy: percussion; Fred Lonberg-Holm: cello; Nate McBride: bass; Jeff Parker: guitar; Ken Vandermark: reeds.
Recorded:
at Yellow Door, Chicago, during the second half of December 2008. Mixed at Chicago Mastering Service; directed by Ken Vandermark; produced by Bob Weston.
"Roads of Water" is the first soundtrack composed by Ken Vandermark, a recognized Chicago sax and clarinet player, composer and improviser. A documentary movie directed by Augusto Contento tells a story of people living on the Amazon river, about the escape from civilization that increasingly determines our lives and our choices and about indigenous people who know no other life. A very poetic tale on the one hand, it's also a very real story of many heroes, a story accompanied by very few sounds. It is filled with beautiful music by Vandermark, music that gives the story space and breath. Vandermark refers here both to what he knows best - traditional, yet forward-looking jazz, as well as contemporary music and folk - although the latter ones are very, very subtle. The soundtrack is highly illustrative in nature, although the lyrical themes, that are sometimes interwoven, are reminiscent of the masters of the best jazz ballads. It is a new face of Ken Vandermark: beautiful, poetic and lyrical, but also crude, devoid of sentimental sweetness, presenting a very different, a very focused and pensive face of this acknowledged Chicago jazz improviser.
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