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MUSIC
©Photo by Johannes Worsoe Berg
Sinton chose a focus—Lacy’s Scratching The
Seventies/Dreams box set—and tasked himself
with reimagining these tunes just enough to have
their souls remain intact while new bodies were
issued. Lacy played soprano sax, and Sinton is a
baritone man, so there’s already some distance
between their essential sounds. Adam Hopkins is
the bassist these days, but Ideal Bread’s general
tone hasn’t changed much since its start: Four cats
inject themselves into the heart of a songbook and
peel back layers of the music to reveal more about
themselves and the music at hand.
Pondering questions of flexible authorship—and
how a 21st century improviser messes with myriad
sources—is part of the fun here. (Don’t forget,
Lacy upended plenty of Monk nuggets.) Sinton
and associates make you think about the pliability
and definition of “a cover tune.” But the joys of
Beating the Teens are elementary, too. After lots of
bandstand time, the quartet’s chemistry is superb,
and the architectural ploys provide plenty of room
for wily gambits.
Knuffke has a sly way of coming around corners.
Fujiwara can be dense and lilting. Hopkins
trusts the power of melody. Sinton banks on textural
nuance, even when he’s shredding. Everything
is up for grabs in these fertile interpretations.
A horn theme in an original Lacy piece might
become a fragment for the bassist to run with
here. One of Lacy’s key rhythms might re-routed
forever. Listeners shouldn’t go hunting too closely;
A/B’ing the updates with the source material
could turn up as many questions as answers.
Uncertainties are left hanging, and that’s a good
thing. But it’s not as if you can’t hear Lacy floating
through the program.
The descending lines in the theme of “The
Wane,” the quacks of “Scraps,” and especially
that eerie aura the bari creates on “Somebody
Special”—yep, Lacy’s around for sure, probably
grinning as his progeny try their hand at making
their own ideal bread. If you try sometimes, you
get what you knead. —Jim Macnie
July 2014 141