Screwgun Records
2005
Feign
About This Album
Given the unique and highly personal qualities of his music, alto saxophonist Tim Berne has been fortunate to find collaborators with the talent required to translate his vision into reality on album after album. In the case of Feign, the 2005 release by the acoustic version of Berne's Hard Cell trio, it seems appropriate to focus a bit of attention on pianist Craig Taborn. With Taborn on piano rather than the array of electronic keyboards he has played on previous Hard Cell and Science Friction discs, Feign is merely the latest evidence that the former Midwesterner -- who is originally from the Twin Cities area and honed his musical chops around Motor City environs before settling in Brooklyn -- matches drummer Tom Rainey's ability to understand Berne's conception and bring it to listeners' ears with the skill, energy, and dynamic range the music requires. Perhaps it might even be more accurate to describe acoustic Hard Cell as a quartet rather than a trio, given the connected disconnectedness between Taborn's right and left hands. As Berne listeners would expect and anticipate, on Feign the reedman trots out all the elements of his signature style, or perhaps by now it should be regarded as a genre unto itself.
Track List (try tracks 3 and 6)

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