Julian Priester: "Love, Love"

I’ve had this on my want list for years now, and it to me more than any other record epitomizes Dolly and I’s experience in Oahu.  The cover of the LP is nothing but an expansive ocean, looking and feeling very much like many of the places we were spending our days on the island, the endless, transparent blue being the backdrop to our every activity, our every step, breath and movement.  The music here mirrors this oceanic hypnosis well, consisting of five long tracks that ebb and flow with all the passion and intangibility of a windward tide.  Legendary trombonist Priester and his equally talented bandmates, including Bayete Umbra Zindiko, Pat Gleeson, Ndugu and Bill Connors, among others, craft a bewitching, spontaneous blend of jazz, transcendental evocations and far-gone synthesizer funk grooves, reaching for some sort of breakthrough in their combustible instrumentation and interplay, eventually giving way to a haunting, post-bop coda that sounds like my thoughts during the days of thicker heat on Oahu, a dense jungle of images, ideas and illusions.  An album that feels as much like a dream as it does a piece of art.