CD Release Party for David Weiss' The Mirror @ The Jazz Standard (2/8/05)

Fresh Sound / New Talent recording artist David Weiss continues down his path of “stretching hard bops kind-of-unstretchable formula" (Jim Macnie, Village Voice) with the challenging follow-up to his critically acclaimed debut CD Breathing Room entitled The Mirror. Already an award-winning composer (the prestigious Chamber Music America Doris Duke Jazz Ensembles Project: New Works Creation and Presentation grant and the American Composers Forum's Jerome Composers Commissioning Program) and arranger (DownBeat Critics Poll, Rising Star Arranger), Weiss has recently honed his trumpet skills working in the bands of trumpet legends Freddie Hubbard, Tom Harrell and Charles Tolliver. Though he has gained invaluable experience and learned important lessons collaborating with and being on the bandstand with such legendary musicians, Weiss' biggest influence on his approach to The Mirror was the works of some his favorite filmmakers particularly the oeuvre of the great Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky.

The brain is a hell of a hard drive, and once an image is lodged there, it resonates forever and Weiss concerns himself with the power of such resonance. Tarkovsky's work has had a particularly profound effect on him and he's often been invigorated by his work. The titles of some pieces on The Mirror relate to images and emotional textures from the Russian filmmaker's canon and though the tunes weren't written to expressly parallel the movies, they had enough impact to coerce their creator into musing on certain aspects of the director's oeuvre. The New York trumpeter-composer, who has led the New Jazz Composers Octet for most of the last decade, is as imaginative as he is resolute; he wants his records to have enough shape and variety to provide their own storyline. For Weiss, the combination of dynamics, color, and mood of an album are paramount. “The music has to be more than just a string of solos, regardless of how strong those solos are," he says. “Tarkovsky's films put you in a whole other place, and that's an ideal notion for a bandleader to strive for...or at least consider. Anything artistic should take you elsewhere, offer a unique perspective. I'm wondering about this process all the time". Building a rhythmic geography, conjuring a particular emotional landscape, offering an important role to each member - Weiss's sextet has many skills to make its music stick in your head. The Mirror is rife with keen structural turns and specifically positioned flash points.

That goes for sustaining an enviable crew, too. The Sextet - Xavier Davis, Marcus Strickland, Myron Walden, Dwayne Burno, EJ Strickland - is one of New York's most impressive ensembles; they've been together for a while now. As Weiss writes for them, he focuses on the breadth of the tale as much as he does a momentary snapshot.

“I was watching a Kubrick documentary recently, and he was talking about perfecting the craft. 'It's all been done before,' he said, 'our job is to do it better.' His movies are perfect. The actors are of certain importance, but they never become bigger than the movie. The feel of the film is the most important thing but he also creates the ultimate environment for the actors to excel in." Let your mind drift a bit when you're blasting The Mirror. There are images and scenes that are bound to make their mark. Weiss's sweep will surely take you away.