David Leon
Aire De Agua
In the weeks just before Aire De Agua came out, David Leon had already landed on my radar for his flute performance on Jason Nazary's Spring Collection album. His debut album as a leader, however, finds him sticking strictly to alto saxophone with a set of varied originals.
Debut albums often serve as the place where a musician introduces themselves by saying a good deal, either stylistically or as a soloist. To that end, Leon comes across as something of an anomaly. He doesn't sound tentative in the least, but he doesn't want to say too much. The eight tracks are short. with concise solos. Several of them have surprise endings, foregoing a closing theme in favor of letting a solo serve as the final word Leon is more than willing to step backward or, in the the case of "A Hug Every Day" step offstage altogether and make sure the rest of the band gets equal time. It gives the music a bit of intrigue that offers a counterbalance to a few instances where the ambition outweighs the execution.
Leon's writing sometimes feels rhythmically free, with some element of structure keeping everything grounded, with allusions felt to the classics. The rapid, clipped melody of "Strange and Charmed" recalls the stop-start urge of John Coltrane's "Sun Ship," while "First You Must Learn The Grip" begins like a bebop homage before it jumps the track into a world that includes some reed shrieks and an authoritative piano solo from Sonya Belaya.
Thanks largely to Leon's desire for everyone in his quartet to get equal emphasis, Belaya repeatedly deserves her attention, from the free, hornless "A Hug a Day" to "Bluest Blue," in which the way she strikes the keys has an emotional impact, and coaxes Leon back to take some deserved space. The two also play a melody together in "Horrible, Horrible Service" that eventually splits into separate melodies that each utilize bassist Florian Herzog and drummer Stephen Boegehold.
Although this rhythm section deserves its own space, the title track could have benefited from more of Leon, who limits himself largely to melody line, "Expressive Jargon II" gives each player a simple set of notes or beats which they repeat with slight variations. At seven minutes, it's the album's longest track and the least successful, feeling more like a chamber music experiment that needs some other element to liven it up.
Those details aside, Leon comes across as a performer well on the way to developing a unique voice. Crisp on some tracks like Lee Konitz, but just as willing to flutter- and slap-tongue the reed amidst some enjoyable squeaks a track later, this debut reveals a lot of his ideas are being put to work already.
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