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James Tartaglia's Free Funk Assembly

Dark Metaphysic

Jazz Direct Records NOUS 003

Although this album's accompanying press release describes Dark Metaphysic as a 'unique synthesis of jazz-funk, the avant garde and conceptual art', its cover art features pictures of three German philosophers, and its lyrics range over numerous subjects, including the validity of science, attitudes to pornography and the undervaluing of jazz in the recording industry, it can be readily approached and enjoyed under the first heading, jazz-funk, alone.

Singers/chanters Sonja Morgenstern and Lizzi Wood may be asserting the objective truth of science one minute (albeit also underlining the truism that it's responsible for both medicine and nuclear war) and exploring rhe concerns of conceptual neon artist Bruce Nauman the next, but fundamentally, this is a pretty straightforward funk album, peppered with characteristically vibrant trombone solos from Annie Whitehead, some powerfully throaty tenor playing from composer/leader James Tartaglia and bright, sassy trumpet solos from Ben Thomas.

With keyboardist Matt Ratcliff, bassist Jennifer Maidman and drummer Mark Huggett providing exemplary, solid rhythmic support, a nuanced understanding of the dark metaphysicians or hermeticism (or even the disrespect shown to jazz improvisers in recording studios) is thus not indispensable to appreciation of this album, which in Tartaglia's words hopes to 'do for metaphysics what Sun Ra did for outer space', although admirers of the great Saturnian will no doubt have a head start on those who stubbornly persist in regarding the late bandleader/composer merely as Herman Blount from Birmingham, Alabama.