"Brilliant, deeply creative music. Every sax player should check out Ken Field! If you haven't heard Ken Field, do yourself a favor and seek out his music. He is one of the most creative and inventive players around. Way underrated!"
"Insomma un musicista creativo, che vuole pensare con la sua testa e che si fa poco condizionare dale mode e dai trend." [Full Review]
"This is GREAT music!!! This gets the pick of this issue for best improvised jazz, along with our most highly recommended rating!"
"Excellent...a wealth of melody and feeling...daring"
"[Ken Field is] one of Boston's true music innovators"
"Pictures of Motion is diverse, featuring reed-driven tone poems, shaky-jake funk, and drones that reveal their melodic side with each new breath. Field thinks in terms of reeds and their character, and his music embraces much of what the saxophone has to offer."
"A commanding and beautiful sound"
"Twentieth Century head music with a swinging beat - Four stars"
"Stunningly beautiful"
"Extraordinary...Field's style is uniquely his own"
"Field's brilliance as a composer is his ability to pass off high-minded composition through a thoroughly accessible sound...The closest musical comparison I could find to Field's concept of cultural jamming would be that of Rahsaan Roland Kirk."
"A wonderful piece of work - diverse yet all of one mind at the same time"
"16 stars (A PERFECT SCORE!!!) I admired and enjoyed every minute."
"Killer sh*t!"
"One of the most provocative CDs I have heard. It was in my car CD player for three weeks. Through composed and thoroughly enjoyable."
"A great and imaginative work. Impressive...a wide range of innovative aesthetics."
Pictures of Motion (sFz Recordings 002) is the second solo release from Birdsongs of the Mesozoic saxophonist Ken Field. Composed in Wyoming and recorded in Seattle & Boston, this unique music for layered alto saxophones builds on the concepts Field introduced on Subterranea, his critically-acclaimed debut 1996 CD on O.O.Discs.
Pictures of Motion, on sFz Recordings, includes new compositions for alto saxophone trio and quartet (including two of Field's compositions for Sesame Street) with guest musicians including Seattle saxophonists Amy Denio and Jessica Lurie, percussionist Will Dowd, drummers Ethan Meyer & Eric Paull, and bassists Mike Rivard & John Styklunas.
The CD reached the number one spot on the WZBC jazz charts, was voted among the best releases of the year 2000 in the international Green Dolphin Poll, and reached #13 in the Winter 2001/02 top 20 on the Minumum Vital radio show on Radio Kreizh Breizh (in the Brittany section of France). There were release concerts in Providence, at the Knitting Factory in NYC, at Flywheel in western MA, and a sold-out evening in Cambridge.
The Boston Phoenix called it "excellent" [Full Review].
Read the liner notes by John Schaefer.
Available from sFz Recordings (508-947-7387), CDeMUSIC (888-749-9998), CDNOW, Amazon.com.