Jeff Coffin - Between Dreaming & Joy [Import] - (Canada - Import) - [CD]

Between Dreaming and Joy is the latest release from saxophonist, composer and educator Jeff Coffin (Dave Matthews Band/Bela Fleck & the Flecktones). In the company of an eye-popping cast of musicians, the album is a breathtaking culmination of over two years in the studio. Calling upon its enigmatic, pandemic-included origins, Coffin's 10-track collection gathers unusual and new sounds for the saxophonist, speaking to the power of his boundless compositional impulse and eclectic sonic arrest. Coffin is joined by a diverse, all-star group of musicians for his 21st release as a leader. With an impressive and vast lineup, each artist featured on Between Dreaming and Joy's roster uniquely recorded for it in a different place - a rare circumstance for Coffin, who notes how recording each component felt like a jigsaw puzzle due to the album's many pieces. Between Dreaming and Joy, while anchored in spontaneity, captures Coffin's inclination to transcend genre. The record is sustained by a variety of instrumentation and features 8 bassists, 6 drummers, 5 guitar players, 4 keyboardists, a set of Middle Eastern frame drums, Brazilian percussion, Moroccan vocals, a turntable artist, multiple horns, an ice cream truck, a Hungarian Toarogato and an African Ngoni. REVIEW Jeff Coffin is best known as a sideman/bandmate, in such high-profile and fusion texts as Dave Matthews and Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, but has built up a 20-something album discography under his own name. For his latest, the culmination of intensive pandemic-time prep work and with a piled-high cast-of-many in the culling of parts from remote studios, Coffin jumps into an ambitious free fall of a project, to varied ends. Listening to the album in sequence may be misleading. Early, the album consists of innocuous and polished funk jazz variations, with simplistic riffs passing for melodies and an off-putting proximity to the banalities of smooth jazz. At times, Coffin's flute work has the effect - intentionally or otherwise - of a tribute to Herbie Mann, an unapologetic pop-jazz-fusioner of another era, especially on "Bird & Magic." Many of he album's charms and saving graces arrive in the details and detours, as with the 13-beat groove of "In the Belly of the Whale," and tasty solos from the likes of Robben Ford and Coffin on a myriad of reeds, flutes and more (including a coke bottle). The cinematic title cut may the set's highlight, with its enigmatically woozy sensuality, chromatically tumbling B section and a fluid, potent solo from young slide guitar wizard Marcus King. Rhythmic strategies can grab the ear even when other aspects fall short. "Spinning Plates," has a pan-global, hypnotically layered rhythmic maze effect, and a slithering slink-funky quality energizes "Behind the 8 Ball." --Josef Woodard, Downbeat