Eric Person and Meta-Four at Santa Monica College
by jazzcat on Apr.11, 2006, under News
Straight outta Brooklyn to Los Angeles, my main man Eric Person set out
on a West Coast that proved to be quite a musically successful venture. His
intent was to make his journey part vacation, part business and 100% jazz
music, Meta-Fourically speaking!
He came down to the LAX Westin and sat in with Larry Nash,
visited the Crown Plaza for Rebecca Paris, stopped by LACMA for John Heard,
checked out an up an coming jazz club downtown called “Harlem Place” that, when
finished, is going to be one of the most beautiful places to see jazz in the
world and dropped into Café Metropol to have a quick visit with Rocco Somazzi.
Quite the busy cat, but when it came to playing his first gig of the tour, it
was all about the business of the alto and the soprano.
Eric lives in the East but, he teamed up with some brothers
from the West for this trip. On piano, one of our outstanding players who just
produced his very first album, Mr. John Rangel. On bass, another one of the
cats from around the way who has played with Dwight Trible, Hydeus Kiatta and a
number of other folks around town, Mr. Kevin Oneil. And on drums, a young man
working on many different projects around town and certainly becoming one of
the most sought after percussion players in this town, Tony Austin.
Eric writes all of his own music and his thoughts and
concepts are derived directly from his travels and life’s experiences from
growing up in St. Louis to making the pilgrimage
to the mecca of the music, New York
citay! He is here playing with these cats for the first time and although his
concepts are challenging, the music rises to the occasion.
The audience here at Santa Monica College
is full of music students. Not the ones that play instruments but, those taking
music appreciation classes and some hearing jazz for the first time. Keith
Fiddmont, Leslie Drayton and Kevin Oneil, are all players but, are also
instructors here at Santa Monica
College. Many of their
students are in the audience and have been learning the foundation of the music
through class and now getting to experience the music first hand. You can tell
that these young minds are eager to learn, hear, feel, grasp, incorporate and
become apart of the music as they listen with open ears.
“Majestic Taurian Majesty” is a piece that was written and
dedicated to Charles Mingus. A sweet mid-tempo ballad with rich tones and
colorful bass characteristics revealing the softer side of the bull. The music
silences to just the sound of the bass and then to just the alto as if old wise
ones are telling their stories to a captivating audience with a thurst for
knowledge. The individual voices of the instruments on their own are powerful, spiritual,
and just a beaming light of brilliance as the sole source of the sound.
The auditorium is big enough to have a sizable audience yet
intimate enough for the music to collectively penetrate the individual souls as
one pure cognitive source of musical intelligence. It’s EP not ET and a phone
call home about the standard, meditative, Trane-like, therapeutic qualities of “Stella by Starlight” would not be a bad
idea. Familiar phrases with so much different information that you look forward
to hearing how it will be expressed the next time it is performed. On “It’s
Time Again” the relevance to New
Orleans is prevalent and if you just close you eyes,
you can feel the concepts sink into your body. Over off to the side, Eric
smiles as the cats start digging in enhancing the Beauty of “Song #6”. In
church they call it tongues, but live on stage, it is the natural birth of
musical creation, no epidural. Integrity in simplicity cannot always be
achieved but, is so satisfying when it is. The music is open, free and swingin’
with Extra Pressure!
LeRoy Downs
