Elliott Sharp's Terraplane - Secret Life (2005) with Special Guest Hubert Sumlin

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Elliott Sharp's Terraplane - Secret Life (2005) with Special Guest Hubert Sumlin

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Few others besides avant-garde composer/instrumentalist Elliott Sharp could record a collection of blues songs and make them sound like a new genre altogether, a sort of blues/folk/jazz/new age sound with droning keyboards, slinky reverbed vocals, sinuous guitar parts, and angstful horns. The album is by turns haunting, sexy, volatile, and soothing.

Review by Allmusic.com

Multi-instrumentalist Elliott Sharp expresses music through his own personal filter. He does this in the postmodern spirit: instead of assembling a collection of musical ideals, he adopts musical ideas rooted in the reaction to the restrictions and limitations of those musical ideals. In some highbrow sense that may describe what Ornette Coleman and late John Coltrane were attempting to do with not only jazz, but music in general.

Sharp takes blues, jazz and rock elements, combining them freeform to create what can, to the chagrin of his intentions, only be termed as 21st Century blues. His compositions, while not amorphous, tend to exhibit a gleeful freedom, further evidencing their postmodernist origins.

Sharp's approach of choice involves sliding a smooth surface over a stringed instrument. He is a slide guitarist on the order of Sonny Landreth, and a lap steel guitarist like Cindy Cashdollar. Sharp shows no fear in his attempts to summon what sounds from the instrument he can. He is careful to use precise engineering to do so, and the recording benefits from his efforts.

The songs collectively make up a free jazz tone poem. Individually, they are vignettes, passing musical thoughts reflecting convergent emotions. "The Say We Is is a Howlin' Wolf "Spoonful stroll propelled by Sharp's straight guitar playing. "Edifice Wrecked has a dirge-like construction reminiscent of a John Lee Hooker single-chord drone, except that its harmony is not based on a single chord. The drumming is primal and the reeds are noisy in a manner that's more pleasant than the approach of Archie Shepp or Sam Rivers. "On Down (as on the opener, "Highway Null ) has a down-home acoustic slide guitar feel. Sharp coaxes natural harmonics from the guitar.

Elliott Sharp is the guitar equivalent of John Zorn. That is fitting, as the two are friends and collaborators. Secret Life is a fine addition to the Elliott Sharp library. This is forward-thinking music which looks backward for inspiration.

Review by C. Michael Bailey, AllAboutJazz.com

Whether he plays jazz, rock or free improvisation, Elliott Sharp’s guitar can rip flesh, thanks to his astounding fretwork skills and an inventive musical vocabulary. What makes Terraplane, his blues band, so strong a group is the fact that Sharp doesn’t trade his Downtown New York perspective for a bag of blues licks to fit the mood. You get the same composer-performer on Secret Life that unsettled the ears with the noisy rock band Carbon. That approach keeps the band from sounding anything close to typical.

Terraplane has a good deal of low-end punch, thanks to the trombone of Curtis Fowlkes (Jazz Passengers) and baritone saxophonist Alex Harding. They both solo, but Sharp gets most of the spotlight, tearing it up on console steel guitar and National Tricone, as well as six-string and tenor saxophone. Guitarist Hubert Sumlin, who began his career playing with Howlin’ Wolf, guests on two tracks.

A theme of post-9/11 anxiety permeates the album and Eric Mingus and Black Rock Coalition’s Tracie Morris add furious vocals to several tracks. Mingus possesses the spirit of father Charles and the gravel of Dr. John, coming up short only when the lyrics are reduced to repeated slogans (“USA Out of NYC!”). But as a whole, this is the real blues of the 21st century.

Review by Mike Shanley, JazzTimes.com

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Elliott Sharp's Terraplane - Secret Life (2005) with Special Guest Hubert Sumlin

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Elliott Sharp's Terraplane - Secret Life (2005) with Special Guest Hubert Sumlin

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Elliott Sharp's Terraplane - Secret Life (2005) with Special Guest Hubert Sumlin

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