By Phillip Lutz | Published January 2022
This brief EP is a companion piece to bassist Moffett’s latest studio album, New Love, released in June 2021. Recorded at Yoshi’s on July 25 of this year, it features versions of two tracks from that album — “Flying In The Air” and “Higher Dimensions” — and two new pieces, “Remembering Your Love” and “Inside/Outside,” along with a version of the George Gershwin song “Summertime.” The music is performed by a stripped-down trio: Jana Herzen on guitar and vocals, Moffett on fretless electric bass and Corey Garcia on drums.
Moffett has a long and wide-ranging history in jazz. He was 17 when he played on Wynton Marsalis’ Black Codes (From The Underground) in 1985, and has subsequently worked with artists ranging from McCoy Tyner, Kenny Garrett and Wallace Roney to Ornette Coleman (for whom his father Charles drummed in the 1960s), Sonny Sharrock and Pharoah Sanders. He’s an adventurous player comfortable in almost any context, stepping out when the moment calls for it but happy to play a supporting (and supportive) role behind Herzen on the first two tracks here.
Once the vocal numbers end, though, the musical polarity shifts. The group becomes a jazz fusion trio combining ’60s-inflected raga-rock with speedy, high-energy fusion, and Moffett is very much the leader, his impossibly fast (and sometimes fiercely loud) bass runs shadowed by Garcia’s dancing cymbals and thumping toms, as Herzen provides subtle harmonies, her versions of the unison melodies just a hair slower and more considered than his.
Live: Summertime; Remembering Your Love; Flying In The Air; Higher Dimensions; Inside/Outside. (20:15)
Personnel: Charnett Moffett, bass; Jana Herzen, guitar, vocals; Corey Garcia, drums.
