4 Walls of Freedom by Joe Locke

Joe Locke is quite simply the best Vibraphone player in the world.This album does a lot to prove this point.Having seen Joe play live this album does the genius of Locke much justice - it's only a shame that when you're listening to the CD you can't experience Joe's crazy facial expressions as he moves across the instrument with phenomenal speed and dexterity.Saying that of course the CD unlike live performances can be rewound and the tracks listening to again and again. Although it starts off a little bizarrely "Surfacing" soon turns into an upbeat classic, and no it's not computer generated; Locke really plays that fast - spitting out notes like a machine guns spews bullets!The CD contains Bob Berg (tenor sax), Gary Novak (drums - also on another one of Locke's albums), James Genus (acoustic bass) and special guest Gerard Presencer (flugelhorn).It looks like Sirocco Music and the album's Executive Producer John Priestley have done it again with another excellent album.

This is a really fine disc made all the more poignant because it's Bob Berg's last appearance on record. Tragically, the brilliant tenor saxophonist died in a car crash shortly after this disc was made. The fact that it's Joe Lock's session doesn't really matter: Berg is a monster presence throughout these proceedings. Indeed, ironically, it may be his best and most persuasive performance in his long and distinguished career.But let's not dwell on that. Instead, let's celebrate this absolutely marvelous, even stunning, music. Oddly, this disc bears a distinct resemblance to Milagro, that brilliant Southwestern-flavored jazz disc by the great jazz pianist, Alan Pasqua. For starters, there's the Southwest packaging, with the giveaway being the turquoise wood molding on the back of the CD insert. A closer look reveals that it's not turquoise at all, but more baby blue, even periwinkle: thus Mediterranean, not Southwest. But you know what? It doesn't matter. More than mere packaging, there's a deep Four Corners-type feeling about this music. As I live in Monument, CO, one of the four states whose corners join to form the only contiguous point of four states in the US, I feel the deep Southwest vibe in this music. In reality, it may well be that this isn't a Southwestern vibe at all. After all, one of the cuts is called "Ballad of the Storni," and the reference is to birds that winter in Rome. Southwest, southern Italy, whatever. There's a definite warm-climate vibe here, and if I choose to identify it as Southwestern, who's to argue?In any case, whatever the exact climactic/geographic referent, all four of these dudes are on the same musical page. And that page is one of my favorites-an elegiac, celebratory, ecstatic page: mystical, earthy, and transcendent.The addition of Gerard Presencer, the monster British flugelhorn player, on a couple of cuts only enhances the glorious vibe happening here.This continues the overwhelming feeling that 2003 is going to go down in the annuls of jazz history as one of the very finest years ever.

This band is on fire! Joe Locke (vibes), Gary Novak (drums), James Genus (bass) and the late, great Bob Berg (tenor sax) burn white hot through 62 minutes of Locke's intricate, tuneful compositions. Gerard Presencer (flugelhorn) guests on three tracks. If intense, high-energy jazz is your thing, this CD will put you in hog heaven. Small quibble: I wish the bass were higher in the mix.