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Release Date: 24-10-2005
Label: Jaro Medien
Catalog Number: JARO4260-2
Barcode: 4006180426025
Musical Style: World
Track Listing:
| Disc 1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Gift Of Gab [06:26] | 6 | Caresses [04:21] |
| 2 | Neverneverland [05:52] | 7 | Hoodwinking [03:35] |
| 3 | Temporarily Crooked [05:17] | 8 | Ambush [06:06] |
| 4 | Iffy Passions [05:47] | 9 | Dance On The Water [04:39] |
| 5 | The Shotgun Wedding [04:46] | ||
Description:
The stimulation for Jasper van't Hof's latest project was provided by none other than the European musicians on the last PILI PILI tour: Inspired by the energy-laden improvisation of the brass section, he began writing material for a new project involving a great deal more brass. HOT LIPS is the name of the new formation, and it's almost a big band – at least the team (at heart a sextet) certainly sounds like one. On first hearing, the sound may be a little reminiscent of old PORK PIE days: wildly effusive keyboard passages mixed with well-rounded and highly palatable themes in combination with a funkily plucked bass. But the moment the broad harmonies of the brass section come in, it becomes clear that Jasper van’t Hof has invented something entirely new here. With HOTLIPS – in a manner very different from the band PORK PIE, which was characterized by a certain wildness and rhythmic intensity – van't Hof is looking for a bigger lineup, bigger soundscapes and a more compact lyricism, all of it accompanied by a precise and metrical beat and forceful intensifications of tempo. HOTLIPS certainly allows its excellent musicians time for solos, but van't Hof's main objective is to put his team's entire sound potential to collective use. There was a brief PORK PIE revival in the mid 1990s, where the musicians involved (including Philip Catherine, Charlie Mariano and Don Alias as well as van’t Hof himself) also integrated their global musical experience, especially where Africa was concerned. Now, however, HOT LIPS not only dispenses with African musicians but also (with one exception) with World Music aspects altogether. The new band devotes itself entirely to European fusion jazz, but not as we know it from the early '70s. On the contrary, the style is entirely contemporary, owing as much to funk rhythms as it does to minimal music aspects; there are powerful grooves but the music is also dance-like, even reminiscent of chamber music, and – something one encounters again and again in Jasper van’t Hof's compositions – comprises the odd elegiac moment as well.
