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Rick Margitza – Bohemia

Nocturne NTCD 359

Rick Margitza - saxophones, keyboards/Michel Alibo - electric bass/Vivian Arnoux - accordion/Jeff Boudreaux - drums/Riccardo Del Fra - acoustic bass/Laurent De Wilde - piano, fender rhodes/Xavier Desandre - percussion/Tammo Heikens – sitar/Amanda Homi and Majorie Roets - voice/Olvier Ker Ourio - harmonica/Adam Kolker - clarinet, bass clarinet/Oliver Louvel – balalaika, bouzouki, charango, dobro, guitars, saz, electric sitar/Vasile Nedea - cymbolim/Florin Nicotescu – violin/Jean Michel Pilc - whistle/Roger Rosenberg - bass saxophone/Tomas Savy - bass clarinet/Baptiste Trotignon - piano/Karim Ziad - drums, percussion

Recorded Paris Spring 2004

Rick Margitza is a thoroughly imaginative musician who performs with conviction and from a continually investigative aesthetic. Although his major saxophone influences are Brecker, Coltrane and Shorter, his voice on both tenor and soprano is entirely his own.

He started on violin at four, then studied classical piano and oboe and switched to tenor in high school. He attended Wayne State University, Berklee, the University of Miami, and finally Loyola University in New Orleans, where he lived and played for four years. He toured with Maynard Ferguson, Flora Purim and Airto Moreira. He moved to New York in 1988 and joined Miles Davis' group, recording on three albums: Amandla, Live Around the World and Live in Montreux. He has many more recordings to his credit as well as associations with such artists as Chick Corea, Maria Schneider and McCoy Tyner.

Bohemia is transparently a devotion to l’esprit gitan; it is not merely a tour of Eastern Europe. Although born in Detroit (1961) his grandfather was a gypsy violinist from Hungary. The roots, which also encompass origins in India, are clearly heard throughout this album, hardly surprising as all twenty musicians appearing can claim similar backgrounds.

The music is mainstream (of its kind) and is always accessible. It is modest in tone and the performance is never aggressive and always clearly stated. It is, by turns, jolly, lyrical, melancholy, self-indulgent or sensual. It is in truth an album of many parts, not all of which appeal to me. It is in fact an accomplished performance, the music moving with almost theatrical assurance, but there were times when I realized that I should have been listening, but wasn’t. I suppose then that I could say that it is a very relaxing collaboration and if that’s what you want, you’ll not do much better: it won’t, though, get up and throw you out of the window.

Reviewed by
ken cheetham