Coyote Jump-Global Native Chamber Music.

Hear Coyote Jump interviewed tonight on Echoes (8/9/2012)

Coyote Jump’s debut album, Waking from the Roots, is slightly deceiving. The cover, with its neo-primitive rendering of a coyote, looks like a typical Canyon Records sleeve for a Pow-Wow or Peyote song album. However, the first notes of a Middle Eastern frame drum and buzz stick announce that this CD is different, and once the violin and strings arrive, it’s clear this is not a Native American chant recording.  Instead, Waking from the Roots is an album of global chamber music centered by the cedar flutes of John-Carlos Perea and the compositions, piano and guitar of Colin Farish. Together they fashion a multi-faceted journey infused by global rhythms and classical backing.

The album is assembled from an array of previous sessions by Farish, which explains why frame drum master Glen Velez, Oregon bassist Glen Moore, and electric bassist Kai Eckhardt, appear on the CD. But Farish wields these eclectic elements into a gorgeous, often pastoral journey that is centered by the flute playing of John-Carlos Perea.  An Apache native, Perea is also a hot electric bassist. He doesn’t pull out his fusion chops on this disc, but you can hear them informing the free flowing lines and subtly articulated melodies he plays on his flutes.

References to R. Carlos Nakai would be obvious, and Perea is one of the few Native flutists who can withstand the comparison. His performance is fluid and full of detail with a certain muscle that is usually lacking in Native flute players.  Listen to him digging into the notes on “Salish Sound”, bumping up against bassist Glen Moore and the tabla of Doug Scheuerell in this forest jaunt. On the trancey grooves of “Migration”, Perea evokes the sound of a Turkish ney flute, bending lines in serpentine moves.

In addition to composing most of the music on the album, Colin Farish plays piano and guitar as well as creating evocative string arrangements,

sometimes using a simple cello or violin and sometimes a cello octet, which he uses on the classically inclined “Midnight Moon” featuring the choral group, Chanticleer.

When you strip away all of the arrangements and exotic instruments, you’re left with a beautiful communion between Farish and Perea which you can hear on the duet, “Prayer/Taking Flight.” This music works because Carlos and Perea are simpatico players who are tuned into the deep, and that resonates on every track of Waking from the Roots.

~© 2012 John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

Hear Coyote Jump interviewed on Echoes TONIGHT, August 9.

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