Worth The Wait, 4/5
Peter Erskine has always given music as much thought as action. Ever since his tenure with Weather Report, Erskine has maintained a serious thinking drummer´s perspective, listening more intently than most, slowly paring back his drumming style to the barest of elements.
Worth The Wait reconfirms Erskine as a master of the big swing foot, an incredibly light-on-his-feet player whose quick hands and quicker wits always make for great music. Joined by longtime associate Tim Hagans on trumpet, he joins forces with Sweden´s Norrbotten Big Band for this excellent all-originals outing. Reflecting Erskine´s intellectual nature, the arrangements dance and dart with welcome alacrity, such as the punch-to-the-gut time shifts of "You Should See My Office". Beginning with full brass call-and-response segments with Erskine, the track swings briskly as tension builds via increasingly layered sections. It then suddenly drop kicks to a slow blues with a mean tempered tenor solo that is a nasty sin. "Worth The Wait", "Drum Row" and "First Jazz" achieve similar results, collectively providing one of the best big band outings in recent memory.
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- Ken Micallef, Down Beat |
