"HYPERBOLE TRIO"

Clive York sop, ten saxes; Julia Doyle double bass; Dave Fowler drums. Recorded at The Premises, London. 17/18 Feb 1997. SLAMCD 226 5 028386 022626

TRACKS:   

1   Five six seven

2   In a nutshell

3   Ode to Yehoudi Gnu

4   Dark blues

5   Gentle slopes

6   Three form

7   Morning lover

8   Improvisation

9   Ominous

10  ASB 11  5,6,7

Total playing time 46m 12s.

Jazz Journal York, Doyle and Fowler are hardly household names but this album should win them plenty of fans. Improvisation is an open-ended piece that lives up to its name. The remainder are compositions by the three band members and they take the form of thematic inspiration for the solo excursions that follow. Some are built around pleasand riffs, Nutshell is especially jaunty, Yehoudi Gnu and Gentle Slopes are full of inviting charm and Morning Lover has its own particulr strength. All elicit free solo development and, in York, the group has alyrical horn to shoulder much of the responsbility. His quizzical tenor on Dark Blues is matched by his logical development of Five Six Seven, Nutshell, Three form and Morning Lover show that he is equally at home on soprano and that he knows how to 'move out' in all of his solo realisations. Doyle has a fine attacking solo on Gentle Slopes and has a good tone in her arco reading of Morning Lover. Fowler is subtle in support but his musical drum interludes on Three Form show him as very much a soloist in his own right. With the the exaggeration implicit in a name like the Hyperbole Trio, one might have expected a 'one man band'. Happily, all three musicians are equally involved and, after all, they do play as one. Barry McRae