Real Time (Steam album)

Real Time
Studio album by Steam
Released 1997
Recorded April 5 & 6, 1996
Airwave Studios, Chicago
Genre Jazz
Length 62:51
Label Eighth Day Music, Atavistic
Producer Steam
Ken Vandermark chronology

A Meeting in Chicago
(1997)
Real Time
(1997)
Single Piece Flow
(1997)
reissue cover

Real Time is an album by American jazz reedist Ken Vandermark, which was released in 1997 on Eighth Day Music and reissued in 2000 with new artwork by Atavistic. He leads the quartet Steam with pianist Jim Baker, bassist Kent Kessler and drummer Tim Mulvenna. The band was formed in part to dip into the repertoire of the post-changes jazz tradition, they played live covers of tunes by Anthony Braxton, Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy. On their debut, the group chose exclusevily to deal with its own pieces: six by Vandermark and three by Baker.[1]

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
AllMusic [2]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz [3]
Down Beat [4]

In his review for AllMusic, Tom Schulte states "Vandermark brings from his Vandermark 5 his trademark hard-edged horn gusto while working in the jazz group ideal of each member stepping forward supported by the rest."[2]

The Penguin Guide to Jazz says "The usual quota of interest, but it would have been more exciting to see how they dealt with a set of covers."[3]

The Down Beat review by Aaron Cohen says "Try to imagine Eric Dolphy with a more audible sense of the humor combined with a more beat-heavy Herbie Nichols, and the resulting blend would approximate Steam."[4]

Track listing

All compositions by Ken Vandermark except as indicated
  1. "No Go" – 5:53
  2. "Non-Confirmation" (Jim Baker) – 6:24
  3. "Situation Travesty" (Jim Baker) – 9:26
  4. "Explosive Motor" – 7:00
  5. "A Memory of No Thoughts" – 5:59
  6. "Chump Change" – 6:40
  7. "Correlative Amnesia" (Jim Baker) – 7:19
  8. "Tellefero" – 7:02
  9. "Tableau Shot" – 7:08

Personnel

References

  1. Original Liiner Notes by John Corbett
  2. 2.0 2.1 Schulte, Tom. Steam – Real Time: Review at AllMusic. Retrieved November 14, 2014.
  3. 3.0 3.1 Cook, Richard; Brian Morton (2002). The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD. The Penguin Guide to Jazz (6th ed.). London: Penguin. p. 1488. ISBN 0140515216.
  4. 4.0 4.1 Cohen, Aaron. Real Time review. Down Beat January 98: page 53. Print.