MICHAEL GARRICK — Promises (review)

MICHAEL GARRICK — Promises album cover Album · 1965 · Post Bop Buy this album from MMA partners
2.5/5 ·
Sean Trane
Although Garrick was at the time also in the much-more advanced Rendell-Carr Quintet by the time of this release, Promises doesn’t really hold up its name, despite the presence of Carr and Green on trumpet and contrabass respectively. OK, the line-up also comprises the granddaddy of British jazzers Joe Harriot, which wasn’t going to transform the present album into an Impulse! Label’s “new thing” either. Rounding up the line-up were the usual accomplice of Tony Coe and lesser-known (to moi, anyway) Colin Barnes Coleridge Goode. It was released in 65 on the small Argo label and reissued in Japan in the 00’s since, elsewhere in the world.

Yes, this album Promises is certainly not at the cutting edge of the British scene of that year, although the first real interesting stuff will really start to happen around that time. This sextet hasn’t got much to envy to the majority of US Blue Note release, except maybe the fame, whether back then or nowadays. The three RCQ members are certainly here far from the level of inventiveness that they will show with the superb Dusk Fire album the following spring. Yup, instead, they’re quite standard-y as all tracks but one (a interesting Gershwin rendition) are Garrick-penned, something that can surprise a bit when hearing the stuff he was developing in the RCQ group.

Sure, tracks like Thing Of Beauty or Second Coming (maybe the album’s highlight and the most complex composition) are not ripping their names, but that Merlin is anything but wizardly, and the title track is not really kept, while Requiem is a snooze-fest, even for those resting in peace. Some of the tracks (like Portrait Of A Young Lady) can actually sound so-retro, that you’re wondering if this not beyond the cliché and on the way to the pastiche. Only the closing Song By The Sea features a soundscape a bit out of that time-warp or mind-frame, as it features a vibraphone, but fails to captivate either.

Anyway, even the longer tracks (like the 7-mins+ Parting Is Such) don’t offer anything more than their shorter cousins, where you could’ve hoped that the musos would actually drop it all off and let it hang out, but alas, nothing of the sort. Although I wouldn’t rename this album Deceptions, I must admit I was expecting a tad more adventurous stuff than this run-of-the-mill stuff that won’t deceive the miller, but the client was maybe expecting a different kind of flour. Not my cup or tea.

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