• Within Reach (2:36)
• Escondido (7:44)
• Inside the Shadows ()
• ATMA (8:59)
• Ours Again (3:49)
• The Jewel in the Lotus (10:15)
• Black Ice (3:04)
• Tears (7:52)
• Not Later Than Now (2:38)
• Early Reflections (5:52)
• Inner Sky (7:19)
• Prophet's Motifs (4:23)
• Spirits of the Tatras (9:00)

Artists

• Michal Baranski
  bass
• Bennie Maupin
  Woodwinds
• Hania Rybka
  voice
• Michal Tokaj
  piano
• Lukasz Zyta
  drums

Reviews

• The veteran Detroit-born multi-reedman Bennie Maupin has been criminally under-recorded as a leader with just five previous albums under his own name in the last 35 years. But Maupin, whose sinewy bass clarinet solos helped define Miles Davis' landmark fusion album, "Bitches Brew," and who spent most of the '70s riding shotgun with Herbie Hancock, appears to have found a champion in Cryptogramophone, a boutique label based in Los Angeles.
  
  "Early Reflections" (*** out of four stars, to be released on April 22) is a follow-up to the excellent "Penumbra" from 2006. Maupin is joined by a core quartet of Polish musicians with whom he has developed a rewarding affinity through frequent European sojourns. Based on a collectivist spirit, the music rejects standard melody-solos-melody structures for a brushstroke flow of color, textures, dialogue and modal improvisation. Short, sketch-like compositions give way to more expansive floats of lyricism.
  
  Maupin's circular tenor patterns on "Within Reach" wander languidly through Michal Tokaj's gentle chordal landscapes, bassist Michal Baranski and drummer Lukasz Zyta twitching alongside. Much of the music whispers, and whether Maupin is playing tenor or soprano saxophone, bass clarinet or alto flute, his playing is defined by patience. Even when things heat up, as on "The Jewel and the Lotus," Maupin's best-known composition, arranged here as a swirling, Coltrane-like waltz over an infectious vamp, Maupin's soprano retains a wailing poise.
  Mark Stryker
  Detroit Free Press [4/1/08]
• Bennie Maupin's Cryptogramophone label follow-up CD to Penumbra both parallels and provides a departure from that excellent effort. What is similar is the softer tone Maupin is displaying in his far post-Headhunters days, refined by experience and cured though wisdom. The music Maupin plays on this beautiful effort is even more subdued, as he collaborates with an ensemble of relatively unknown musicians from Poland. If you've been hearing recent efforts from Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko and his ECM recordings with the teenage pianist Marcin Wasilewski and his trio, you hear stark similarities. But further, the recently reissued Maupin epic Jewel in the Lotus, which was also on ECM, is quite different than this ECM sounding project. Old may in fact be new again in some respects, but in this case, new is really new. Maupin offers so much appealing music within the undercurrent, starting with the delicate but paced "Black Ice" and the waltzing title track with Maupin on soprano sax. Separate flute and piano lines are woven into a more somber waltz "Tears," or the sparse, spacy, long "Spirits of the Tatras" with dynamics patiently rendered up and down with lots of piano from Michal Tokaj, who rivals the crystalline musings of Wasilewski on the entire album. Of course, the piece de resistance is Maupin's hearty, throaty, bass clarinet work, a sound all anticipate in live or studio performances. The repeated lines during "Escondido" and brash, unpredictable sounds on the outstanding "Prophet's Motifs" urged on by the precise clockwork drumming of Lukasz Zyta makes musical common sense. It is the tenor sax of Maupin that is perhaps the most understated of all his instruments during the duet with Tokaj on "Ours Again," and the carefully constructed, pensive "Inner Sky." There's also a recapitulation of "Jewel in the Lotus" which exudes more energy and audio excitement, especially on Maupin's second soprano solo. One has to always wonder if Maupin has a magnum opus within him, and this comes close, for it is certainly his most introspective, reflective, and inner spirit-directed effort in a long and varied career playing progressive jazz.
  
  
  Thom Jurek
  All Music Guide [4/14/08]
• While veteran multireeds player Bennie Maupin has enjoyed a rich history performing in bands led by Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock, he's also a potent leader in his own right, as evidenced on "Early Reflections." A passionate outing of rumination and whimsy in the company of an all-Polish trio, the album serves up melodic gems by Maupin on tenor and soprano sax and alto flute, half of which develop fully in the two- to four-minute range. He's playful on "Inside the Shadows," soulful on the happy-go-lucky "Prophet's Motifs," swinging on the sprightly "Black Ice" and hushed on the gentle "Within Reach." Best of the bunch: the slow dance "Escondido," which Maupin delivers with earthy bass clarinet clarity, and two tunes featuring Hania Chowaniec-Rybka improvising wordless vocals in the mix. -by Dan Ouellette-
  Dan Ouellette
  Billboard [April, 2008]
• "Most widely known as the bass clarinetist on Miles Davis’s “Bitches Brew,” Bennie Maupin has been making excellent albums lately. He recorded “Early Reflections” (Cryptogramophone), his latest, with a group of young Polish musicians who aren’t well known here. Many of the pieces begin with small melodic motifs that he and the quartet patiently explore, sometimes with Hania Chowaniec-Rybka’s wordless vocals. This is patient, well-planned music, and Mr. Maupin’s sound on bass clarinet, as well as tenor and soprano saxophone and flute, is provocatively honest and strong and almost plain, with spaces in between phrases; he’s never playing too much. It’s a remarkably clear-minded record." -by Jonah Jones
  Jonah Jones
  The New York Times [May 2008]

• Bennie Maupin made his name in Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock's fusion bands, then progressed into avant-funk; on Early Reflections, the flute/saxophone/clar-inet player splits that continuum wide open. Recorded in Warsaw with a Polish quartet, it's acoustic post-bop jazz of rich lyricism, both subtle and audaciously gorgeous.

  Maupin's compositions adapt easily to this approach. It's his playing, however, that sets the tone: The disc opens with him delicately building a tenor-sax figure, pianist Michal Tokaj and bassist Michal Baranski in equally gentle pursuit. Elsewhere, he reshapes "The Jewel in the Lotus," the difficult title track from his classic 1974 album. While Baranski and drummer Lukasz Zyta play a sprightly romp, Maupin coaxes wistful phrases from his soprano, sustaining them until they fairly float away—transforming the original's eeriness into sweet reverie. Tokaj does as much as Maupin to define the music here—significantly, Early Reflections is Maupin's first album since Jewel on which the acoustic piano is a major voice. Without it, the pensive, serpentine tenor lines on the duet "Ours Again" would drift into rudderless free jazz; with Tokaj's luminous tone and complex harmonies, it's more like a romance. The pianist also brings emotional depth to the Latin shuffle "Escondido," and imbues his own ballad "Tears" with great tenderness.

  Flashes of avant-garde do appear, mostly in the shortest tracks (as if an obligation, to be dispatched quickly); the exception is the nine-minute closer, "Spirits of the Tatras." Here, abstraction slowly gives way to a lyrical resolution, helped along by Hania Chowaniec-Rybka's expressive vocals and Maupin's pacific flute. It's a full reversal of the reedist's usual challenging-with-a-touch-of-pretty tack, yet Reflections never feels like a reinvention—merely an artist detouring into a different aspect of himself. That detour just happens to yield something extraordinary. -by Michael J. West

  Michael J. West
  Village Voice [April 2008]
• ""Early Reflections" slides easily from Latin to ballad to blues, revisiting 1974's electronically adventurous "The Jewel in the Lotus" along the way. While playing in Poland, Maupin was knocked out by some local musicians... and conscripted them for the sessions."
  

  
  

  Gina McIntyre
  The Los Angeles Times [April 2008]

• In 2006, multi-instrumentalist Bennie Maupin breezed back to jazz prominence with Penumbra, a charming, spare-but-sprightly album that landed on many Top 10 lists. Maupin, former Headhunter and Miles Davis electric-era sideman, had reemerged as a leader with a distinctive, less-is-more compositional style and a wise-elder assuredness and authority.

  Maupin extends this mood on his new album, playing bass clarinet, tenor and alto saxophone, and alto flute backed by the trio of Polish musicians he has toured with in recent years. Two tracks also feature understated wordless improvisation by Hania Chowaniec-Rybka, a Polish folk singer who specializes in Tatra Highlander music, a source of inspiration for this record. The original wellspring for this project of spirited chamber jazz, however, is almost certainly John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, hints of which shine through on "Ours Again" and "The Jewel In The Lotus."
  
  While the band stretches out on some of the tunes, the highlights are the numbers built around simple, rhythmic forms that echo back to Maupin's days of brain-bubbling funk and fire, but deliver instead a Buddhist-like sense of calm, clarity and exploration. Among these are the open-ended opening track "Within Reach," "Prophet's Motifs" and "Escondido," a breathy, minimalist bossa through which Maupin's bass clarinet glides like a graceful and unhurried sea creature. -by David French
   

  David French
  Downbeat [July 2008]

• Thirty-five years ago, Bennie Maupin seemed to be the natural heir to Eric Dolphy's fallen crown. His work with Miles Davis, Lee Morgan and Herbie Hancock revealed a musician with a highly personal sound--particularly on bass clarinet--and the ability to work comfortably inside and out. Recorded in 1974, The Jewel In The Lotus could have been an important step into a successful recording career as a leader...
  

  Interestingly, Maupin now says he never felt that the original performance of "The Jewel In The Lotus"was fully realized. He revisits the piece on Early Reflections adding a piquant new introduction for pianist Michal Tokaj, shifting the piece into a swing tempo and unfurling Coltranesque excursion on soprano as affecting as anything he's ever recorded. Maupin sounds revitalized at age 67, and some credit is due to the sympathetic trio of Polish musicians accompanying him. Vocalist Hania Chowaniec-Rybka appears on two pieces evoking the Tatra mountains near Krakow--one thinks of Jan Garbarek's work with Sami vocalist Mari Boine on Visible World. Following the expressive high point of "The Jewel In The Lotus" Maupin downshifts to the meditative group improvisation "Black Ice" and Tokaj's "Tears," a lovely ballad for flute. The energy rises again on "Prophet's Motifs," where his bass clarinet playing serves as a reminder of his mastery of the dark horn, and then it's back to the highlands for "Spirits of the Tatras": there are mysteries in these mountains, given a soulful expression in the opening improvisation, and Tokaj adds a gorgeous piano solo to cap things off. -by James Hale

  James Hale
  Signal to Noise [Summer 2008]
• I love this album by multi-reedist Maupin, best known for his years (late '60s to mid-'70s) with Herbie Hancock, his history-making appearance on Miles Davis' "Bitches Brew" and earlier recordings with McCoy Tyner and Lee Morgan. Here, with a group of Polish musicians, he makes music of quietly swirling rhythms, colors and song. (Maupin's classic "The Jewel in the Lotus" from 1974 has also been recently reissued on ECM.) -by Richard Scheinin
  Richard Scheinin
  San Jose Mercury News [June 29 2008]