Michael Marcus
For Yes!

Label: Not Two, 2011
Catalogue No: MW 848-02
Format: CD

Tracks:

1. Bird Comes Home [08:16]
2. Dragon Concerto [06:19]
3. Healing Teardrops [06:57]
4. In A Lagoon, Blue Magenta [06:16]
5. Mojo Breakfast [09:50]
6. Night Eyes In Spring [04:24]
7. Riff-Be-In [05:28]
8. Theme Dream [07:57]
9. For Yes! [05:05]

Line-up:

Michael Marcus - Bb clarinet
Lenwwod Turner - trumpet
John Austria - Rhodes piano (#1,2,5,6,8,9)
Rashaan Carter - bass
Clifford Barbaro - drums (#8)
Darrell Green - drums (#5)
Emannuel Harrold - drums (#3)
Jay Rosen - drums (#2,4,6,7)
Russell Carter - drums (#1,9)

Recorded:

May-June-July 2010 at Soulrsounds Studios NYC

Review:

If you approach For YES! as a Michael Marcus CD, you’re quickly struck by how easily it could have been credited to the trumpeter, who might just happen to be playing Marcus’ songs. Then as you go along, you start to think that maybe it’s the bass player who’s the featured artist, then maybe it’s the guy on Fender Rhodes. Such is the egalitarian ethos of Marcus, one of jazz’ most consistently excellent reedists. Fluent on tenor, alto and soprano saxes, as well as the Rahsaan Roland Kirk-associated stritch and manzello, recently Marcus has focused on the Bb clarinet on CD in small group settings and in Duology, a fruitful pairing with trumpeter Ted Daniel. Here it’s the hotshot up-and-comer Lenwood “Woody” Turner on trumpet and his easy lines and fluid improvisations threaten to steal the show, particularly across the nine minutes of “Mojo Breakfast”. Anchored by coproducer Rashaan Carter ’s bass and accented with sprinkles of electric piano from John Austria, a handful of drummers (Clifford Barbaro, Darrell Green, Emanuel Harrold, Jay Rosen or Russell Carter) round out this quintet that plays straightahead music (all compositions by Marcus), bookending the solos with melodic statements, as on the opener “Bird Comes Home” and the dreamy ballad, “Night Eyes in Spring”. The bouncy tunefulness of “Theme Dream” could be plucked from a Golden Era Blue Note or Atlantic Jazz album while Marcus, Turner and Austria navigate the smooth grooves of “Dragon Concerto” like Billy Dee Williams moving through a crowd of stewardesses. One of Marcus’ most rewarding partnerships has been with one of the elders of fire music, altoist Sonny Simmons in the Cosmosamatics, where the masterful horns come together and apart in a hypnotic intertwining of sounds. In this band, however, it’s Marcus who takes Turner along on the sinuous journey through “Riff-Be-In”, their dialogue marked by Marcus’ snake-charming and Turner ’s untroubled glide, their empathic communication audible in every note.
(Jeff Stockton, nycjazzrecord.com)