Web site: http://www.musicweb.uk.net
Actual review can be found at: http://www.musicweb.uk.net/jazz/2003/May03/Loeb.htm
The review:
Peter Arthur Loeb plays Tenor, Piano, Bass and Drums.
The cover of this album is a bit disconcerting, seeing the same face behind each instrument, but Peter Arthur Loeb does play them all on this album. The only other recording of a jazz musician playing all the instruments on a record I can recall, was one made by our own Humphrey Lyttelton called 'One Man Went to Blow'
Peter Loeb certainly has a good sound on his tenor saxophone, which I suspect is his first instrument and although he is competent on the others, I would like to hear him in the company of a top rhythm section. I suspect that the result might be quite startling, he has great improvisational skills and a really good sound. He is also a very skilled composer of original themes as this CD aptly demonstrates, he wrote all but two of the tunes on this album and there seems to have been a family connection with the other two.
Having paid a visit to his very informative web site (http://www.palserv.com), I understand his motivation for double tracking. He is a very skilled saxophone player, who has worked at the highest level of the music business and not been happy with the support he has received from the rhythm sections. Consequently he feels he will produce material that is much more a reflection of his musical persona, when interacting with himself. This may in fact be so, but on the other side of the coin, jazz is about the interaction of different thought processes and just as 'brain storming' in business situations will produce solution that no individual would have thought of, likewise in jazz it is the interaction that's important.
I do not claim to know all or for that matter anything in this overdubbing business and I would encourage other listeners to buy Peter's CD and make up there own minds. I would like to hear him on tenor with a top class rhythm section, hopefully at a Jazz Festival in the UK! I would also express my admiration of the musical and technical ability he has demonstrated in the making of this CD.
Don Mather