MARK SWEETMAN QUARTET: Inspired

Mark Sweetman Quartet

Inspired

© 1997 Mark Sweetman

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Jazz Visionary & Visual Artist Extraordianare

tracks

1 Spiritual Wings
2 Skye
3 Intro: Child Song/Wisdom Of The Ages
4 Journey Made
5 Here And Back
6 Tell Tale
7 Between Friends

notes

Inner Urge:
Drummer Mark Sweetman pursues a spiritual quest.
By Yonah Korngold His sound is raw and drenched with emotion.
With this spirit, Mark Sweetman carries the torch passed to him
from the days when John Coltrane redirected his life on a spiritual
quest after quitting heroin cold turkey by locking himself in his
room on N. 33rd Street with nothing
but cigarettes and water.

Since these days
the number of jazz musicians
that truly understand what it means to be a jazz
musician is growing scarcer than mice in a cat
pound. Refreshingly, Mark Sweetman,
the Canadian-borndrummer, has yet to divert from
the spiritually enriched sound, soul and life that
he discovered inhis childhood.

Born in Toronto,
Sweetman recalls a vibrant jazz
scene where he would spend night after night in the
back of a jazz club called Bourbon St., sipping on ice
water, soaking up the energy and melting away with
the vibrant sound. There he witnessed tremendous
acts like Bill Evans and Chet Baker who taught him
what it meant to play with everything from the inside
out. Perhaps his greatest influence came while witnessing
guitarist Sonny Greenwich roar deep with a
tone no other guitarist can duplicate.

In Sweetman,
there is a lot of Greenwich. It is apparent in
his spir-itualmission and the joy and intensity that surround
his music. Yet Greenwich was not the
only power that awak-ened Sweetman's musical sense.
There was also Sweetman's drum teacher whom
he paired up with in Toronto when he was 18.

Sweetman describes how
his teacher was, “totally into Coltrane, Elvin, Miles,
and Tony Williams.” It is in these drum lessons that
Sweetman was taught more than just drums but “life
class” where lessons about jazz theory soon became
“life lessons.” In these pivotal moments Sweetman
learned that the first rule of music was to never be
afraid of producing one's own sound.

Sweetman followed this jazz guru
on the road to Philadelphia where he spent years
building up the spiritual sound inside of him that finally unleashed
itself in 1997 with his debut album, Inspire d. As the
title emphasizes, the seven tracks on the album are
products of years of built up
musical stimulation.

“The urgency
to put out my own music was so
great that I didn't have a choice,” says Sweetman. “I
had spirituality in there that needed to get out for years.”
With a line up that includes such talents as Ralph
Bowen, Dan Klienman and Mike Boone, The Mark
Sweetman Quartet is full of intensity representing a
music that will take control of the mind and body as
it continues to push deeper into more mystical
depths. Ralph Bowen, “the man” as Sweetman refers to
him, takes Coltrane's legacy into his own saxophone
and gives the group its sparking electricity. A fellow
Canadian, the two had met in the Toronto days when
Ralph Bowen played with the son of Sweetman's
drum teacher.

On a mission to record this vibrant
sound, Sweetman went to go see Ralph at Ortlieb's
Jazzhaus and recruited him in his musical quest.
The deep natural sound of the group comes from
Mike Boone who unselfishly plays the bass while Dan
Kleinman floats around on the piano adding a sense
of joy into the soulfully deep music.

On the Quartet's second album, All Paths Lead To One,
one can hear a more relaxed and joyfully settled
musical experience. From the get go the album is
incarnated with a mysterious Indian drone in which
the drums and bass build off of which climaxes when
Ralph Bowen explodes on the sax.

“I've always loved
the drone in Indian music and
always wanted to play off of it,” says Sweetman.
“Some of my music comes from years of falling
asleep listening to jazz albums. Some just came from
walking around in Europe. When I was in Italy I
heard bells ringing and than a car horn went by and
with my rhythmical sense I put the two together. And
then sometimes I don't know where it comes from
nor do I ask.”For these reasons The Mark Sweetman Quartet
remains unique in a music business where things
aren't always what they seem.

Unusually quiet in the
public scene, Sweetman remains an underground
secret who is completely content with the life he leads
and the music he has produced.
“I think one can identify with it [the music] and
when they do they identify very deeply.”
It is this rawness of sound that got the attention of Patti LaBelle.
“The interesting thing was that he [LaBelle's manager]
understood the thread of spirituality in which
Patti LaBelle appeals to in her audience and recognized
that they in turn would get in my music.”

This understanding led to the Sweetman Quartet
opening for Patti LaBelle at The Westbury Music
Fair. In this experience Sweetman recalled how Patti
LaBelle's musicians all were enthusiastic and a bit
jealous with the easy going and free attitude that the
Quartet has adopted as their philosophy.
In the upcoming months the quartet plans to
rejoin LaBelle in Jamaica along with a return to the
studio to record a Coltrane tribute album.

“The thing about Coltrane and spirituality is
something that pretty much has disappeared now
except for a few of us who do our thing.
“We are not going to copy Coltrane; we are men of
this era who happen to love Coltrane.”
Like Coltrane, when recording, Sweetman believes
that the band should play together in one room and
not hidden behind layers of equipment behind stu-dio walls.
In this sense there is no doubt that Sweetman will
be able to capture Coltrane's intensity and also be
able to give the music a personal element that will
speak to the group's modern uniqueness.

reviews

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  • spiritual music for the soul
    author: AMIR

    music that will always stimulate the mind and soul.

  • Marvelous, the real thing, energetic, spiritual.
    author: Ellen Weiss

    To hear this CD is gain an understanding as to what jazz is meant to be. Not just alot of learned licks but poetry or the unveiling of a beautiful painting. The CD ouzes spirituality.

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