Description
Personnel – Chris Potter: tenor and soprano saxophones, clarinet, bass clarinet, flutes, piano, keyboards, acoustic and electric guitars, bass guitar, drums, percussion, samples.
Inspired by the year’s events, he creates a tour de force that is a tonic for our troubled times. Potter’s buoyant sax tone and penchant for retro synths often make him sound like a one-person Weather Report. Surprise rhythm changes, idiosyncratic voicings and catchy hooks abound. This solo album by Chris Potter, made in six weeks while in lockdown, reveals instrumental insight as he plays all the instruments in a new and challenging experience that included writing, recording and producing. And his well known strengths are on display here, especially the killer saxophone solos, the compositional eclecticism, and the ability to find color and joy in his surroundings.
The opening track, “I Had a Dream”, has all that. The piece, inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, has a glowing Afro-folk feel to it that enhances the urgency of equality in this world. There is a Tide was conceptualized and arranged with imagination, insisting on the search for beauty and hope instead of focusing on the fear and despair.
