speak to it reviews

 

Option Magazine Nov/Dec 1996
Human feels latest disc shows a further development with their unique and powerful music. This disc is unusual in that it was co-produced by electric bassist Skuli Sverrisson—odd, considering that Human Feel is a bassless group. Still, there is no denying the vision in this music. For example, “Cat Teachers,” by reedist Chris Speed, exemplifies many of the group’s traits – odd rhythms (spaciously mastered by drummer Jim Black), growling guitar from Kurt Rosenwinkel, and Speed’s give-and-take with fellow reedist Andrew D’Angelo. This groups precision, solid sense of compositional direction and intuitive improvisations are certainly a byproduct of the years that it has spent together, both as a unit and as members of other groups (for example, both Speed and Black are in Tim Berne’s bloodcount). In one particularly memorable section of D’Angelo’s “Eno Eva Yood Nodi,” Speed and D’Angelo play an incredible duet with only swelling intervention from Rosenwinkel’s guitar. Perhaps the most perplexing but most welcome piece on the disc is the only non-original, - Billy Holiday’s “Left Alone,” which features vocalist Holly Palmer. This group’s version of the piece is mysterious and dark, much like Holiday herself.
- Russ Summers

 

Seattle Times 1997
“Speak To It” is Human Feel’s most mature and accomplished disc, particularly from the standpoint of its compositions, which are between ferocious, quirkily driven rhythmic pieces and atmospheric chamber music, with electronics. Sudden about faces are a consistent feature.
- Paul de Barros

 

All Music Guide
Recording under the group name of Human Feel, are Jim Black (percussion), Andrew D'Angelo (reeds) and Chris Speed, who emerges as the dominant voice with his sometimes frenetic tenor saxophone and clarinet. Speed is a compelling player with an original voice, and he contributed three of the ten tunes. Andrew D'Angelo joins him on alto and bass clarinet, the latter of which is particularly effective. As to be expected, Jim Black's dynamic, swirling drums are a continual highlight. Kurt Rosenwinkel rounds out the group with his sometimes aggressive, sometimes atmospheric, often horn-like guitar. The music is mostly a group effort and succeeds on its own terms. If there is a criticism, it is a slight and occasional lack of focus. Overall, though, there is much to enjoy.
- Steve Loewy

 

Downbeat 1995
Earshot Jazz Festival
Once again, this October, when the black sky descends, Seattle’s jazz community retreated indoors to throw a progressive party. For 16 straight nights, the Earshot Jazz Festival moved from funky dives to museums to University Of Washington concert halls. This seventh year of the event had star quality; the Keith Jarret trio on its first U.S. tour in eight years; Wayne Shorter's return to public performance (after a two-year absence) with a brand new septet; Joe Lovano.
But the special energy of this festival always flows in from the edges, rather that out from the big names at the center. Earshot director John Gilbreth brings emerging adventurous voices, both near and far, to mix and match with the national acts. Every year, this festival disrupts assumptions, gets in your face and finds fresh synergies.
In 1996, the strongest and most recurrent of those synergies came from Seattle/New York transcontinental cross-pollinations. On the second night of the festival, a quartet called Human Feel lit up the backstage, a basement club in Ballard, one of Seattle’s oldest harborside neighborhoods. Three members are Seattle natives, but the band is now based in New York. They have the charm of street urchins, and Chris speed (tenor saxophone, clarinet) and Andrew D’Angelo (alto saxophone, bass clarinet) can fly on their instruments with the fearlessness of the very young. But this group is not about individual bravura. Human Feel is part of a promising new leading edge in jazz: fierce horns set free to improvise within tight, pianoless arrangements. On pieces like “Cat Teachers,” dirge-like opening unisons proceeded through starts and stops to interwoven wailing ascensions, then fell back to murmurs. This nouveau chamber group is willing to risk inciting the guests to riot and wreck the chamber. The visual focus is the percussion ballet of Jim black, a tiny drummer of the arachnid family whose multiple appendages crawl everywhere on the kit, rattling and knocking and feathering.