Record date: August, 7,8 & 9, 1991
Charlie Mariano and Mal Waldron have quite a lot of things in common: they both played with Mingus, they both recorded with German krautrock band Embryo, they both flirted with rock music and they both resided in Germany. So playing together wasn’t really a shocking idea. They recorded their first album in 1991 called ‘Autumn Dream’s for the Japanese jazz label ‘Alfa Jazz’. As a rhtythm section they used Mal’s regular trio with John Betsch and Paulo Carduso.
The album starts with a high energy original by Mal Waldron. It’s here where most things are happening. Mariano plays some nice fiery solo’s and Mal is playing his ass off. The interpreation of the traditional ‘Greensleeves’ is another creative engagement without any predictable dullness. The band sounds inspired and there’s some nice soloing by Carduso. But after that it all collapses a little. The following standards are all played in a beautiful way and there’s lot’s of chemistry between the guys. But the tension is gone and the music just goes on without really telling something. It’s beautiful music when reading a book, but these guys would have been capable of more than that. Their choice for standards that have been played over and over again by so many others wasn’t the best choice.
These Alfa releases from Japan are pretty expensive. Always a few copies for sale on Discogs but never for less than 30 euros. This is some beautiful music but you must be prepared to pay some money for it. And both guys definitely have made more exciting work.
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