Dwight Trible/Matthew Halsall - Inspirations

The Guardian 80

(Gondwana)

Dwight Trible’s rich, rangy voice has featured in numerous contexts in recent decades: hip-hop with Carlos Nino and J Dilla; an ambient duet with pianist John Beasley; space-age R&B beats with Ninja Tune’s Life Force Trio; and hard bop collaborations with the likes of Bobby Hutcherson and Charles Lloyd. But he’s most comfortable in the spiritual zone defined by Leon Thomas and Pharoah Sanders, which is why these eight modal jazz covers, recorded with Mancunian trumpeter and bandleader Matthew Halsall, fit Trible like a glove.

Burt Bacharach’s What the World Needs Now is turned into a spacey, one-chord waltz overlayed with Alice Coltrane-style harp glissandos; Cole Porter’s I Love Paris becomes an arrhythmic astral jazz voyage, all rumbling piano and fluttering cymbals. On an uptempo version of Feeling Good, Trible’s baritone creeps into the territory we associate with an opera tenor and sounds thrillingly ecstatic.