Review: The Tuba Project

[Steve Marcus]

From All About Jazz:

[quote]The Tuba Project
Lucian Ban and Alex Harding | CIMP Records

By Budd Kopman

With The Tuba Project, Lucian Ban and Alex Harding have put together a raucous, bluesy, energetic, and at times ecstatic album. Drawing from deep roots in jazz and Afro-American music, these musicians play with a contagious abandon.

The CIMP recording technique, which takes great care in capturing the sound of the band live and uses no post-processing, works to great effect here. The record sounds very alive and in-the-moment, with a very palpable feeling of being there. My one quibble is that Ban's piano volume is a little low, so you might want to tweak the balance a bit to the left.

Bob Stewart's tuba is more than just a instrument to fill in the bottom end and function like a string bass. His sound is very clear and he articulates cleanly. Yes, he does play a bass line at times (even doing a “walking tubaâ€