• Neophilia 2006 (4:31)
• Walter Bishop Jr. (6:32)
• Level Three (3:15)
• Blinkers (1:20)
• Penumbra (7:01)
• Mirror Image (1:14)
• Message to Prez (6:02)
• Tapping Things (5:35)
• Vapors (4:44)
• One for Eric Dolphy (2:33)
• See the Positive (2:48)
• The 12th Day (2:52)
• Equal Justice (7:15)

Artists

• Munyungo Jackson
• Bennie Maupin
  Woodwinds
• Darek Oles
  Bass
• Michael Stephans

Reviews

• "Penumbra" marks the return of the musician who played the spidery, sepulchral bass clarinet lines all over Miles Davis' "Bitches Brew." Mr. Maupin, who also plays saxophones and flute as well as some piano, has lived in California since 1972. He has a patient, concentrated, self-possessed sound, as if he has a lot of time, knows what he can do and isn't interested in blowing you away all at once. The new record, with a California band, is immensely satisfying: a sustained mood of laid-back wariness, at times close to chamber music, with lots of space in the music and grooves played subtly.
  Ben Ratliff
  New York Times [5/6/06]
• Bennie Maupin, whose bass clarinet work helped define Miles Davis' classic Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1969), was an equally key contributor to Herbie Hancock's 1970s Mwandishi and Headhunters groups. In light of this, it's hard to believe that he has released only six albums as a leader during his lengthy career. One bona fide classic, The Jewel in the Lotus (ECM, 1974), sadly awaits issue on CD, and another disc comes very close: Driving While Black (Intuition, 1997).
  
  But while both of these records had clear precedence in Mwandishi and electric Miles, Penumbra is an all-acoustic affair, featuring long-time associate Daryl Munyungo Jackson on percussion, drummer Michael Stephans and bassist Darek Oles Oleszkiewicz. Chordless groups aren’t particularly unusual, but by focusing on bass clarinet and using two percussionists instead of the more conventional two horns/bass/drums lineup, this quartet occupies a darker, earthier space. The grooves range from the fiery swing of Vapors, featuring Maupin on soprano, to the 6/8 funk of Tapping Things, where Maupin’s bass clarinet delivers the elliptical theme in unison with Oles, before opening up into a more interactive conversation. There’s little here to jar the senses.
  
  Still, this may be Maupin's freest session. Walter Bishop Jr., featuring Maupin on tenor saxophone, is the kind of modal music that Coltrane might have made if his vision had been less intense. Rather than creating sheets of sound, Maupin concerns himself with space, allowing every note to breathe. Every now and then a flurry of notes evidences his instrumental facility, but he’s more concerned with a tranquil sense of the spiritual—close, at times, to Charles Lloyd’s more meditative work.
  
  Oles has only emerged on the Los Angeles scene in the past few years, and his debut as a leader, Like a Dream (Cryptogramophone, 2004), demonstrated an equal marriage of technique and spare economy. The bassist proves to be a remarkable listener here. On the free-ish but clearly form-based Level Three he manages, along with Stephans’ astute brushwork, to anticipate Maupin’s every move. Jackson is sometimes so subtle as to be almost invisible, meshing seamlessly with Stephans on the guarded ebullience of Message to Prez, but more up front on See the Positive and The 12th Day—the two most uplifting tracks on Penumbra.
  
  Maupin contributes rich alto flute to the African-tinged title track and blends European classicism with American concerns on the closing ballad, Equal Justice, proving himself a capable pianist. But the bass clarinet is his main axe, and the solo One for Eric Dolphy is both an homage and statement of individual intent. Penumbra may surprise listeners expecting Maupin to carry on the electric vibe of The Jewel in the Lotus and Driving While Black, but in many ways the looser organic nature of this effort makes it his most personal and satisfying record to date.
  John Kellman
  All About Jazz [5/8/06]
• With his first release in eight years, many astute observers of the modern jazz scene should welcome this new outing by multi-reedman Bennie Maupin with open arms. Acclaimed for his stints with keyboardist Herbie Hancock's electric-funk units of the '70s and session work with Miles Davis among other sojourns, this effort transmits a novel aura of sorts.
  
  Marked by capacious musical vistas, Maupin’s distinctive sound resurfaces in glistening splendor. Bassist Darek Oles' multi-functional role features booming ostinatos and contrapuntal dialogs with the leader. Moreover, the players intimate a quasi world-beat motif, due to the rhythm section's gently pulsating grooves amid Maupin's explorative passages, topped off with catchy hooks and steamy lines.
  
  The band occasionally ventures into the free strata but tempers the flow on pieces such as "Penumbra," where Maupin's alto flute work casts a trance-like melody atop cyclical percussion. But they pick up the pace with odd-metered funk movements during "Tapping Things," as Maupin's stinging bass clarinet lines generate a buoyant vibe. And with the piece titled "Vapors," the musicians render a torrid bop vamp. Nonetheless, this is an impeccably thought-out endeavor! It would be a shame if the leader chooses to embark upon another recording sabbatical. Subtle surprises, crafty musicianship and sustainable compositions loom as the irrefutable highlights here.
  Glenn Astarita
  www.jazzreview.com [5/9/06]

• **** Coming from the multi-instrumental camp of Yusef Lateef, Bennie Maupin is deeply involved in modulating instrumental color and texture, but he also likes to tell a story.  He shifts between horns (and occasionally piano) as a way of changing expressive modes.  There's a lot of quiet music here, but also lots of variety.  The alto flute of the title track is meditative and calm, where the equally somber soprano miniature that follows, "Mirror Image," is more incisive and penetrating.  Maupin's tenor on "Trope On A Rope" is more pensive, understatedly restless.

  Maupin's acoustic band is perfectly suited to his storytelling.  Percussionist Daryl Munungo Jackson is a longtime partner, and he is the colorist's colorist, added little textures and sounds or using hand drums to help drummer Michael Stephans propel things, as on the more aggressive "The 12th Day." Compositions - all but one by Maupin - are simple, revolving around short themes, often stated by Maupin in tandem with bassist Darek "Oles" Oleszkiewicz. The latter has a big, woody sound, and he's a powerful foil for Maupn; his solo on the piano piece "Equal Justice" is unfettered and strong.

  The meatiest part of Penumbra though, comes in the form of Maupin's bass clarinet, which continues to be his prime instrument. A tough ostinato underpins "Neophilia 2006," as the bass clarinet gradually emerges from the bass vamp to offer a solo equally expressive and reserved. The unaccompanied bass clarinet piece, "One For Eric Dolphy" periodically returns to gulping arpeggios that conjure its dedicatee but with an unforced tone that's Maupin's own. "Message To Prez" perhaps points back at the ultimate source of Maupin's relaxed, often floating melodicism. 

  John Corbett
  Downbeat [August, 2006]
• More than a dozen wildly divergent tracks herald the return of reedman Bennie Maupin as a leader. His first new disc in nearly a decade emphasizes sharply etched bass-clarinet work, with shadowy sorties on tenor and soprano, in a quartet without piano. It's a beauty.
  Neil Tesser
  Jazziz [July 2006]

• It's been a long time coming, but multi-reed player Maupin finally has made his great album as a leader. A perennial sideman in early fusion bands (most notably on Miles Davis' Bitches Brew) and in Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi, Maupin helped connect hard bop and jazz-rock, but he never enjoyed wide acclaim. Without casting an eye back to his past fusion glories, Maupin forges ahead on this album, with an unfailingly lyrical woodwind voice that works in concert with a unique and subtly textured ensemble.
   
  Maupin's bass clarinet has always been his calling card. On "Neophilia 2006" and "Message to Prez," he plays it with an intimate woody tone and coaxes lovely melancholy phrases from it that glance off the rhythm section at unexpected angles. His airy alto flute weaves ethereal melodies over African rhythms on the title track. His tenor sax has a slight acid bite to it, just enough to give a plaintive edge to "Walter Bishop Jr." and "Trope on a Rope."
   
  The band's instrumentation is spare -- bass, drums, and percussion -- but potent. Darek Oleszkiewicz's bass lines provide a dark hardwood trestle around which the rest of the band intertwines. Drummer Michael Stephans swings mightily at a quiet volume, his brushwork implying power and providing drive while leaving space for the soloists. Percussionist Daryl Munyongo Jackson adds color and additional rhythmic thrust without adding clutter. Maupin has put together a late-career masterpiece that was worth the wait.

  Ed Hazell
  Jazziz [August 2006]

• Bennie Maupin's first album in eight years is called Penumbra, and there are just so many reasons why this title is completely perfect.

  
  

  Firstly, there's that sound: the bass clarinet; the smoky, murky, deep and dark bass clarinet; the sound of furtive movements in the shadows, subterranean, lurking.

  
  

  And then there's the unmistakable sense that, finally, with this album, Maupin is emerging from the shadows cast by his past mentors and teachers, emerging as a heavyweight in his own right, as a leader and a pioneer. It's thirty seven years since he added his brooding darkness to Miles Davis's Bitches Brew, almost as long since he helped define the sound of Herbie Hancock's Headhunters. Since then he's recorded rarely as a leader: a few albums in the '70s, 1998's Driving While Black -- and now Penumbra.

  
  

  Finally, it seems, Maupin is summoning up the gravitas we've hoped for all these years -- assuming his rightful position as the pre-eminent bass clarinettist in contemporary jazz, stepping out of the shadow cast by his old teacher, Eric Dolphy. The album's "One for Eric Dolphy" reads almost like a passing of the baton, with Maupin exploring the expressive possibilities of the instrument -- from sweet lyricism to raging over-blowing -- and emerging as the foremost practitioner of his art.

  
  

  And, of course, there are the compositions, the way they lurk in a penumbral region, a hinterland, skirting the avant-garde with one foot firmly in the funk. The opener, "Neophilia," is as perfect a groove as you’re likely to hear all year; "The 12th Day" is a subtly restrained slice of super-heavy rhythm; "Tapping Things" has an irresistible, heads-down, chase-your-tail momentum; while "Walter Bishop Jr." -- as the name suggests -- is a slow-burning modal treat, summoning up the dark intensity of the Black Jazz label's iconic '70s output by Bishop and others.

  
  

  On all these tracks, the band is as tight and meaty as a side of frozen beef: Michael Stephens' drums, light and unobtrusive, suggesting shades of rhythms rather than all-out breaks; Daryl Munyungo Jackson's congas giving a head-shaking urgency; and, underneath it all, Darek Oleszkiewicz's deep, deeper, deepest double-bass hits like a glove in the guts.

  
  

  And all of these are interspersed with brief solo ruminations and skittering, avant-garde explorations, cut adrift from the rhythms, the sound of a mind stretching out free. These are messages from the interzone, a summation, signposts. Past and future meeting here and now.

  
  

  Yeah, it sounds like Bennie Maupin is emerging from the shadows. But let's hope he doesn’t come right out into the glare. We need him exactly where he is, right there, digging around in the penumbra.

  Daniel Spicer
  Pop Matters [9/18/06]