Review: Marcus Roberts - Deep in the Shed

[andrew.j.whitman]

I'm beginning to notice a pattern here. I read Stanley Crouch's
liner notes and then I get surly. For all I know the man may be a
brilliant and astute critic in other contexts, but I get so weary
of his sucking up to various Marsali that I automatically discount
any album that he feels fit to praise. So I have to admit that I
felt predisposed to trash Marcus Roberts' "Deep in the Shed" as
soon as I opened the CD booklet and recognized Crouch's inimitable
psychobabble within the first few sentences. The music changed my
mind, though. The truth is that "Deep in the Shed" isn't a bad
album. In fact, it's triumphantly, resplendantly mediocre. Roberts'
six blues-drenched originals are tastefully played all right, and
Roberts himself is a gifted pianist, recalling Coltrane-era McCoy
Tyner or Miles-era Herbie Hancock. That's pretty good company.
The problem is that Roberts' compositions are completely nondescript.
Roberts had the same problem on his debut album, "The Truth is Spoken
Here," but he compensated by throwing in some brilliant interpretations
of Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington compositions. "Alone with Three
Giants," his latest, is even better because it foregoes the originals
entirely. But "Deep in the Shed" proves that impeccable technique
won't make up for a lack of creative ideas. Todd Williams, Herb
Harris, and Wessell Anderson opt for safe sax all the way, and
Wynton's rhythm section of Reginald Veal on bass and Herlin Riley
on drums is merely unobtrusively functional. One E. Dankworth (who
sounds suspiciously like one W. Marsalis to my ears) throws out some
well played, swinging bop trumpet lines that recapture but add
nothing to the spirit of Clifford Brown or Fats Navarro. Crouch notes
that Roberts' album is "another example of how American art, sometimes
against seemingly invincible odds, continues to renew the legacy of
its luminous relationship to the beautiful." Whew. If you say so,
Stanley. But only Marcus Roberts himself sounds awake enough to
even consider the odds. "Deep in the Shed" mostly sounds like
musical sleepwalking to me.

Andy Whitman
AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus, Ohio
att!cblpn!ajw or
a...@cblpn.att.com

[Gidi Avrahami]

a...@cbnews.cb.att.com (andrew.j.whitman) writes:
>I'm beginning to notice a pattern here. I read Stanley Crouch's

>liner notes and then I get surly. [...] I automatically discount

>any album that he feels fit to praise.

Hear, hear. But the Grouch also wrote the liner notes for Don
Pullen's NEW BEGINNINGS, which is (a) excellent (b) not neo-trad.

--Gidi

[Marc Sabatella]

>The truth is that "Deep in the Shed" isn't a bad
>album. In fact, it's triumphantly, resplendantly mediocre. Roberts'
>six blues-drenched originals are tastefully played all right, and
>Roberts himself is a gifted pianist, recalling Coltrane-era McCoy
>Tyner or Miles-era Herbie Hancock. That's pretty good company.
>The problem is that Roberts' compositions are completely nondescript.

I have precisely the opposite opinion - while most of the playing is ordinary,
Marcus' compositions are superb. Well, OK, the tunes themselves are somewhat
nondescript, but the harmonies (within the blues paradigm), voicings, and
arrangements are the most well-crafted this side of Duke. Someone (Marcel?)
charaterized the tempos as "funereal", and apparently meant this as a
disparagement; I had the same observation but didn't think of it as negative.

Marc