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Harry Skoler: "Two Ones"

  Tobias

Beyond the old-guy-musical notion of a serious, illustrative improv album spotlighting clarinet (the bandleader), vibes and flute, there are two instantly recognizable uses for these sounds: 70s movies and long meandering drives.

I won’t go over the specifics of who’s-what in this quintet as you’d forget all about it in seconds, but essentially it’s a meeting of scowling Berklee College of Music faculty guys and their peers making things up as they go along, tossing random neural impulses into their workaday hotel-bar stew as they come along, for instance the few bars of “Girl From Ipanema” Matt Marvuglio’s flute sneaks into “Two as One,” the album’s most revealing moment of unbridled hackdom. But shut up, if these guys love doing this, who cares, and mind that this is depthlessly pleasant if you’re able to banish the image of Linda Lovelace clad only in a silk scarf from your mind.

And third, friends is friends, so even if Skoler could have traded his flute guy for a top guitarist, trumpeter or Coltrane clone, he wouldn’t have, as in the final analysis he’s at heart a musical philanthropist and educator, always up for channeling Benny Goodman and exposing kids to music.

By Eric Saeger

Homepage: Harry Skoler