Review by Dee Dee McNeil/Jazz Journalist

NOSHIR MODY – “A BURGEONING CONSCIOUSNESS”
Independent Label

Noshir Mody, guitar/composer/arranger; Mike Mullan, alto/tenor saxophone; Benjamin Hankle, trumpet/flugelhorn; Campbell Charshee, piano; John Lenis, bass; Yutaka Uchida, drums.

Noshir Mody’s music has a feeling of New Age wrapped like a blanket around his productions. The first tune on this CD is titled “Secrets In the Wood and Stone.” It opens mysteriously, with bassist John Lenis leading the way. Delicately, the guitar begins to play arpeggio chords across the bass lines. This tune strokes my attention and Mike Mullan adds a very complimentary jazz solo on saxophone. As a fifteen- minute-long composition, it still manages to capture my imagination, without becoming boring or redundant. It allows each musician in Mody’s ensemble to introduce themselves via lengthy solos. The second tune, with rhythm guitar strumming brightly, sets the tempo that quickly branches off into an electronic guitar solo. At first, the guitar seems more improvisational than as an establishing factor that marries itself to a composed melody. However, the melody does arrive, after an extended introduction, and Benjamin Hanide adds beauty to the tune on his trumpet. Noshir Mody has composed and arranged all the tunes on this album. It’s odd, but at times, his style of guitar playing reminds me of a harpist. “Precipice of Courage” explores a more Avant Garde approach to the arrangement, especially from pianist, Campbell Charshee. Perhaps Mody explains his compositions and inspiration for this production best in liner notes that read:

“Regardless of how generations have carved out boundaries, delineating our physical, social and spiritual belief systems, the human experience continues to be a universal one. The development of the human spirit is not in the comforts, conquests, luxuries and acquisitions of our external surroundings, but rather in the conflict of our aspirational selves with our base instincts. These deeply individual and personal conquests then in turn facilitate the collective consciousness moving towards a higher purpose.”