NELLY POUGET

LeDire

Minuit Regards FH 17282 CD

" I DO not know know Nelly Pouget," the sleeve- note writer says. That makes two of us. Our liner man goes on to say Nelly is "a Barbarian in the Greek sense of the word: a Foreigner", which is neither helpfull (he doesn't specify where she comes from) nor very friendly.
  Pouget, who plays tenor and soprano, recorded this quartet album in Paris. It features Sunny Murray on drums and Siegfried Kessler on piano. Le Dire's general stylistic orientation is toward Coltrane circa1965 and most of Pouget's compositions have a see-sawing Coltrane-like feel. If nor vastly original, Nelly plays with a real energizing power on both her horns, boosted by her patners on the date.
  Kessler, one of the consistent exponents of new jazz in France (records with Barre Phillips and Stu Martin in the 60s, quite a few with Shepp in the 70s), fires off big chords that are like flares above the dark rolling flow of Murray's wondurful drum and the susurrus of his single sizzle cymbal.
  On soprano, Nelly employs two distinctly demarcated approaches. Most of her playing on the title track has that pinched, nasal "bagpipe" quality that unavoidably brings "My Favourite Things" to mind, hut in the tune's final moments she switches to a more open "classical" sound.The latter approach is dominant on "Expansion", a very simple but pretty, melodic piece.
   Her tenor on "Ange Promenade" is fiery in the extreme, and sings extraordinarily high and clear in the overtone range, getting to places even Pharoah Sanders hasn't reached.

                                               STEVE LAKE