Larry Ochs Sax & Drumming Core: Stone Shift

Saxist Larry Ochs crafts the opening passage of Stone Shift with the raspy tonality of his tenor. Ochs is saying to his Drumming Core: “This is the feeling I want to convey.” His set-up works. Featuring drummers Donald Robinson and Scott Amendola, keyboardist Satoko Fujii and trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, Ochs’ group structures an extraordinary musical topography.

The drumming does become the ‘core’ for the musical evolution and patently substantiates the weight of expressiveness from the other instruments. A crashing sibilance of the cymbals, a simple rhythmic tapping on their edges or centers, the rumbling of the toms or the endless combinations thereof gives freedom to the sax, trumpet and keyboards to intensify their rich convolutions.