One more recording from a night that happened some 40 years ago. A night that deserves to live in infamy, when Marc Soucy, alongside Jeff Carano and Ray Lavigne, got together and produced a sound so grandiose and precise it could tunnel through mountains.
Based in Boston, Massachusetts, Marc Soucy is a progressive music and jazz keyboardist whose vision and ambition know no bounds. My second Marc Soucy experience is the recently released chaotic mayhem that is ‘Charlie Backwards’. This is a highly nuanced, structured, and technically proficient piece of progressive jazz that follows in the footsteps of his previous masterpiece ‘Mayhem in Antarctica’. Both cuts are products of a live night he played with Jeff Carano on the bass and Ray Lavigne on the drums in 1983, in a stone cellar in Dracut, Massachusetts. Both recordings are lengthy and complex compositions that feature highly involved arrangements and extremely tight performances from the trio. Moreover, the recording features zero overdubbing or processing. The sound coming from my speakers is the same as was filling the room in that truly loaded night in the Dracut stone cellar some 40 years ago.
‘Charlie Backwards’ is equal parts aggressive and cheerful. In true jazz fashion, you can never predict where the piece will take you on the next bar. Time fluently flows with Marc Soucy and co.’s performances. Time signature is mostly fluid and the lines feed off each other rather easily, giving the piece a consistent and cohesive feel that defies its extreme complexity. ‘Charlie Backwards’, just like ‘Mayhem..’, is a highly subjective and experimental release that is not meant for everybody. I personally enjoy the rhythmic and harmonic complexity that flows from the trio rather effortlessly, I enjoy the fact that this hectic, manic, and unhinged sound is largely unedited, and I enjoy the feel of the vast synergy that constantly connects those three jazz veterans.
