JazzTimes Critics Best of 2009
Joe Lovano's Folk Art

"In his 57th year, the saxophonist, composer and bandleader is something of a jazz absolute; consistent in quality but traversing schools, styles and formats in a way that argues the music has somewhere to go without accomdating pop. His 2009 Blue Note release Folk Art, recorded with a new group he calls Us Five, only reinforces his reputation as the consummate jazzman, an explorer and historian in equal doses. Folk Art is centered in postbop but plays in and around the avant-garde, and it features elements that, on paper, might seem gimmicky, but in Lovano's hands foster thrilling music.

A cross-generational quintet, Us Five features two drummers, Otis Brown III and Francisco Mela, and Lovano uses them to ramp up the intensity as well as multiply the options for exchange. 'It's as if there are 20 different bands,' he told JT's Geoffrey Himes. Then there's Lovano's arsenal of textually brazen woodwind oddities, including the taragato and aulochrome, and the fact that Folk Art is his first album featuring his original compositions exclusively. Those tunes, alternately burning (Powerhouse), loping (Folk Art), tender (Song for Judi) and askew (the Ornette homage (Ettenro), brilliantly underscore the group's sensibility -- one of the dynamic interaction and aesthetic versaility."