Barney Wilen - Talisman (1994)
Label: Ida Records [IDA 037] | FLAC (tracks+.cue,log) / MP3/320 kbps | 49:52 | 265 MB / 118 MB | 11 tracks
Genre: Post-Bop, Cool Jazz, Hard Bop
Label: Ida Records [IDA 037] | FLAC (tracks+.cue,log) / MP3/320 kbps | 49:52 | 265 MB / 118 MB | 11 tracks
Genre: Post-Bop, Cool Jazz, Hard Bop
On Talisman, the legendary French saxophone icon Barney Wilen leads his brilliant quartet through a profoundly elegant, smoky, and masterfully lyrical studio document. Released in 1994 by the premier French jazz imprint Ida Records, this exquisite late-career offering highlights Wilen's absolute mastery of tone and space, shifting fluidly between multiple horns to breathe new life into foundational hard-bop milestones and classic ballads. Spanning nearly 50 minutes of immaculate high-fidelity design, the 11-track landscape operates with an intimate, deeply expressive, and highly interactive kinetic energy. The quartet delivers pristine acoustic geometry across the tracking, firing off crisp, swinging versions of Dizzy Gillespie's Birk's Works and Clifford Brown's Daahoud alongside a gorgeous, haunting reading of Miles Davis's Blue In Green. Driven by Wilen's dark, velvety saxophone lines, Laurent de Wilde's sparkling acoustic piano and celesta textures, and a beautifully locked rhythm pocket, this archive remains an indispensable treasure for serious cool jazz purists and European post-bop collectors worldwide.