Body and shadow

Description

Brian Blade & The Fellowship Band mark their 20th anniversary in 2017 with the release of their sublime 5th album, 'Body and Shadow', a succinct meditation in 9 tracks on clarity/darkness that arrives as a balm for the soul, ebbing and flowing with grace, subtlety, and without running short of beauty. Formed in 1997, the band released their first self-titled album on Blue Note in 1998, but the bond between the musicians is even older. Brian Blade, the homonymous drummer of the group, first met pianist John Cowherd in 1988 while both were attending Loyola University in New Orleans, and they met bassist Chris Thomas in the 'Crescent City' (the growing city - the nickname for New Orleans in reference to the meanders of the Mississippi around which it sprawls) a year later. With Myron Walden (alto saxophone and bass clarinet) and Melvin Butler (tenor saxophone), the robust and supportive relationship of the Fellowship Band (“we consider the group as a collective instrument,” says Cowherd) has evolved with each album, and Body and Shadow, which also includes Denver guitarist Dave Devine, is an extension of that evolution.