Oliver Lake Have Yourself A Merry... CD

make it funky god reviewed;Nothing matches the sound of the Billy Tipton Memorial Saxophone Quartet. It is riding camels through Mesopotamia, smoking Turkish cigarettes, drinking Tequila, wondering who first invented Ska and whether there is such a thing as Hassidic Hip Hop... -The Stranger, 1995BTMSQ honk, riff and multidrone in a modernist repertoire that can deal with New Orleans jump groove, hip-hop, punk or Klezmer, with nary a jazz cliche in sight. Note that their new CD make it funky god (horn hut records), is the hottest thing since sunburn and includes a primo version of Sun Ra's "Mu". -LA Weekly, 1995Following up their 1993 album Saxhouse, this is the second gem from this five-woman, four-winds-plus-drum kit world jazz ensemble. The saxes range from soprano to baritone but dip dramatically toward the bottom end on most of the songs, giving the entire recording the bouncy, belching, good-time feel of Dixieland or a Little Racals score. Whether they are covering ethnic folk music ("Der Heyser Bulgar" and "Acoustic Hic Hop"), Sun Ra ("Mu") or their own noirish faux soundtracks, ("Air Drone"), the band's instrumentals share the same whacked-out intensity throughout the recording. Things only get squiggly and weird on the closing cut, "Entropic Nocturne," a lazy, hard bop excursion that sounds distressingly like an album-ending detuning compared to the rest of the recording's melody-driven material. The picks of the litter are the Sun Ra cover, a dark, grunting, methodical tribute to the departed master, and the traditional dance, "El Canelo," and all-to-brief blast of ethnic swing that completely blurs the line between irony and enthusiasm...just as it should. ...