| BRIAN ALLEN/REUBEN RADDING REVIEW from the Downtown Music Gallery Newsletter BRIAN ALLEN/REUBEN RADDING - Trombone/Contrabass [CD-R] (Braintone) Featuring Brian Allen on trombone and Reuben Radding on contrabass. This is a particularly strong improvised duo effort, well recorded in a studio in Brooklyn in August of 2005. Reuben Radding is one of our best local bassists and Brian Allen hails from Texas and played here at DMG earlier this year. I like the way this is recorded, the duo sound as if they are right in front of us. Often on the quiet side with those small sounds up close, banging and rubbing the strings of the bass and those indescribable odd sounds that trombone explorers (George Lewis or Jim Staley) often make. These cats seem perfectly matched as they reach for complimentary sounds so often. They can swing for a moment and then twist those notes all over. They can dip into spurts of melody and then let those ghost-like drone-notes hang in the air. Well done, lads, well done. - BLG |