and the band
This recording is the most personal, most compositional and most emotive work of Locke’s career and it features a hand-picked cast of outstanding musicians that bring his vision to life in spectacular fashion: special guests Rosario Giuliani, Donny McCaslin (saxophones), Paul Bollenback (guitar), Victor Provost (steel pan) and Theo Bleckmann (voice), with Locke’s core working quartet, featuring Robert Rodriguez (piano), Terreon Gully (drums and co-producer) and Ricky Rodriguez (basses). Locke commented in the liner notes about the musicians featured on Love Is A Pendulum, “as tightly composed as much of this music is, it would not have risen off the page without the creative contributions of the musicians here. Robert, Terreon and Ricky, the core of this group, have been hugely important to the realization of this project. Working together with a great natural chemistry, they sculpted the shape of each piece into something beyond what I had imagined. Their ability to deal with the written material while at the same time injecting it with soul and spontaneity was (and continues to be) remarkable. I’m also grateful that all of my first choices were available (with a bit of juggling!) to be guests on Love Is A Pendulum.”
John Kelman — All About Jazz
Live in Muri, Switzerland, January 2016 – feat. Robert Rodriguez, Terreon Gully, Ricky Rodriguez
Joe Locke is a musician’s musician, an artist for the ages, a man who has been gracing stages and studios with his immense talent, and uplifting spirit, since he was fifteen. Locke is a man who has gathered no moss as he evolved into a communicator, a conceptualist, a composer, and a modern virtuoso who defies categorization, creating music with small groups to symphony orchestras, and with artists as diverse as Cecil Taylor and The Beastie Boys. With more than thirty acclaimed recordings to his credit, it is no wonder The Times (London, U.K.) proclaimed that, “there seems little doubt that Locke, with his ability to play cool and funky, heady and relaxed, is set to become the pre-eminent vibraphonist in jazz.” Joe Locke‘s new recording, Love Is A Pendulum, is just over an hour in length, but has taken a lifetime to make, as it encompasses all of Locke’s joys and sorrows, and utilizes all of his slings and arrows.
poem by Barbara Sfraga
Love is a pendulum
Swinging freely, parting the atmosphere with each slice
Sweetening the breath of air with each new arc
Carving out its space while
Breathing new life into that well-worn, comfortable pattern
Feel it gently propel you
As the vibration keeps you one step ahead of its gravitational pull
Love is the tide
A pumping, surging undertow that will take you down, pop you up
And drench you in its power
Til you learn to follow its flow
Take its lead
Roll with its rhythm
Meld with its majesty
Love is perpetual motion
Keeping a gentle connection – not a heavy hold
Forcing the hand would stop the action
Touch it gently with your fingertips
And feel the energy flow through you,
branch, search and wind its way through your every atom,
Flow back and forth and back and forth and back
Penetrating infinity
Love is a planchette
Free to move about the board
Fingers lightly touching
Being carried, transported
Secret messages revealed
Prior lives unsealed
Faith and trust now one
Seventh sight begun
Love is letting go
Its eternal
Maternal
It never dies
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