MARRIED COUPLE: Looks Like A Pie To Me

Married Couple

Looks Like A Pie To Me

© 2003 Married Couple (804033300027)

CD IN STOCK. ORDER NOW. Will ship immediately.

Married Couple favors tone and mood, building themes layer by layer with plaintive horns and frantic interplay between bass and drums amidst an avantpop melodic sensibility and a pan-tonal worldview.

notes

Married Couple is four improvisers who've found they have a lot to say to each other.
At first, all they shared in common was a restlessness with jazz and a ridiculous sense of humor. But the quartet soon developed its own unique musical communication that's informed by jazz but also reflects the members' experiences playing speed metal, reggae, Afropop, funk, contemporary classical music and soul. They chuckled through jam sessions. They surprised each other.
Soon they realized they needed to all get married and be a band.

The unlikely instrumentation of drums, bass, trombone and tenor saxophone provides opportunities for Married Couple to create sounds previously unimaginable. Transparent textures created by atmospheric drumming, growling bowed bass and lush, airy horn harmonies find their place alongside raucous grooves with punchy New Orleans trombone, swirling tenor flights and meaty drum and bass tirades. Intense bubbling energy wrapped in warm fuzzy sound.

Interpretations of Björk, Depeche Mode, Schubert and Shostakovitch take their place alongside intricate original compositions, avant-garde jazz tunes and juicy pop songs written by friends.
We figured, since most people listen to a bunch of different kinds of music, bands should be allowed to play all that, too.

Our relationship with jazz? Antagonistic. With pop? Appreciative, but subversive. With classical music? Downright naughty.

Like any self-respecting Married Couple, we squabble. But the fun is in the tension - between serene and edgy, sober and playful, sarcastic and sincere.
It's agreeing on one thing - at any moment, anything is possible.

reviews

Please log in to review this album.

  • love 4ever
    author: rye_fy

    falling in love

  • Very, very enjoyable listening
    author: Zoe Reissner

    Married Couple's CD is pure joy to the listener, in my case a professional musician, but it would be the same to anyone who enjoys jazz.

  • I'm engaged
    author: Kerbacle

    Inticing and melodramatic to the point of laughter. "Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny" -Frank Zappa

  • treacle toffee. Which does not stick to your teeth.
    author: stephen john roberts

    Nice blend of sounds throughout, Your tunes carry a nice flow and pulses* along always. So far a little out of it, in its modern non standard approach.Yet carries well to the ear, No squarks here A specialist blend of Jazz i say. Not for all. I like it ! Drums are mint, I like the way he changes pulse you all follow. Brass is soft and smooth with no sign of a harsh note anywere you make it sound so easy, like melted chocolate lovely :-)equally matched ensamble which has produced a very special disc. Although I would like to have heard some more up tempo tracks. Not this time :-( l8ters steve@binarylabs.co.uk (flugalhorn-player) * Although sometimes its that laid back, You may experience the fact that the musicians have Yes actually fell of there stools. LOL....... ;-)

  • Married Couple breaks the rules of musical monogamy
    author: Johannes Voelz, AllAboutJazz.com

    “The challenge of the next cycle of creative music will call for both new and traditional solutions,” Anthony Braxton prophesied some time in the late seventies. Some of the musicians belonging to “the next cycle” are entering the stage right now, defying neoclassicism while not giving up on tradition altogether, looking for the new yet cleverly avoiding to get stuck in the dogmas of an outmoded avant-garde. These young musicians from the Bay Area call themselves Married Couple – could they have chosen a more ironic name? This is quite an interesting concept of a “couple,” considering that it consists of four players: trombonist Rob Ewing, drummer Jason Levis, tenorist Jonah Minton (who has recorded with Earth, Wind, and Fire trombonist Reggie Young and opened up for Chick Corea), and bassist Lisa Mezzacappa, known to some from the Middle Eastern band Pharaoh’s Daughter (Knitting Factory Records). What their messing with marriage suggests goes more deeply, of course. It’s all about breaking the rules of musical monogamy. Which makes it an intriguing task to describe the music of their debut, Looks Like a Pie To Me. Some of the material consists of radically deconstructed pop songs, like “Here is the House” by Depeche Mode, “Tripoli” by Pinback, and “Parallel Lines” by Kings of Convenience. Then there’s an adaptation of Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8. And finally, the majority of the tunes are originals by the band members. If this reads like the typical postmodern pastiche that turned into an ideology in its own right at some point during the eighties (is there any musician around who says he does not want to tear down genre boundaries? Please email me, I’m always looking for curiosities), I assure you it’s not that simple. Married Couple doesn’t go for eclecticism of the vulgar sort. What they are after is a group sound of their own. And this is exactly their major, astonishing achievement. This is music with a nothing less than a vision. Whether they use a section of a song to swing madly, whether they improvise collectively or whether they take turns accompanying each other – this quartet is always producing an exquisite melange in timbre. Take tenor saxophonist Jonah Minton, for instance: sometimes his tone will remind you of Chris Potter, sometimes he’ll use as much subtone as Ben Webster (well, almost as much). But whatever he chooses, it’s determined by the sounds of the rest of the group, especially by trombonist Rob Ewing, who jumps from Tricky Sam Nanton growls to J.J. Johnson to Albert Mangelsdorff. But there’s vision in another sense here, too. Married Couple lets the listener see right through what it's doing. All its complexity notwithstanding, this music is amazingly transparent. This is largely due to drummer Jason Levis (also a talented classical composer), who rarely plays a steady beat and instead creates sparse textures. He’s always present but never obtrusive, which opens a lot of room for bassist Lisa Mezzacappa. At their best, these young musicians build up intriguing pieces out of no more than three different notes, and even when they’re swinging and shuffling you have the feeling that you can still take a long breath between the notes. Maybe one should employ the term chamber music here if only it weren’t so overused on shelves filled with esoteric ECM ramblings. No, Looks Like a Pie To Me has a palpable sense of fun to it. Let’s say it’s an ironic celebration of open space. And one of the most surprising and convincing records I’ve come across in the first part of 2003. This CD available from www.marriedcoupletheband.com ~ Johannes Voelz

  • This quartet is hands down one of the most interesting and appealing new jazz ba
    author: Marin Gibbs KALX Radio 90.7

    Married Couple is an inspiring local jazz quartet that expands the parameters of jazz with their innovative originals and arrangements. This is playful, almost anti-jazz with no lengthy solos and little swing feel. Married couple is very dynamic, with influences ranging from pop to rock to jazz to classical that are all are represented here. Think Dave Douglas but more hip/esoteric/sinister. I really like this shit- This quartet is hands down one of the most interesting and appealing new jazz bands out there. Check out the Kings of Convenience reworking (# 9, lovely) and the rather obscure Depeche Mode tune (# 10).

email

Please log in to email this artist.