Too Many Chefs DON'T Spoil the Soup

The members of the Skokie-based contemporary jazz ensemble Planet Flippo are each exceptional artist in their own right - masters of their instruments and highly tuned critical listeners and thinkers. Over the thirty-five years they've been together they're made a lot of new music, and their brand new seventh CD, "Four Chefs," adds to the long list of original local contemporary jazz they've brought to Chicagoan's ears.

On the stage and in rehearsals, a type of magic happens when pianist and principal composer Dave Flippo shows up with a new composition and each player begins to offer their creative insights and suggestions. The piece gently morphs and deepens as the band try different tempos, forms, additions and omissions. The results can be heard in "Four Chefs," which pays homage to the communal process of making this music come to life.

The "chefs" include saxophonist and flutist Dan Hesler, whose request to "jam a little" in eleven resulted in two new original tunes on the disk: Blue Eleven and Eleventh Heaven. Drummer Heath Chappell helped shape the form on many of the recordings, and constantly finds just the right groove for each piece to bring out it's character. He's come up with some great idea of the intros and endings for a number of tunes including the Bossa Cool Front. Bassist Donn De Santo - also the recording engineer and co-producer for the project - holds the band together and injects the music with his energy and powerful moods. His interpretation of Blue Eleven brought him and band back to the funky garage band jams he had as a teenager. Pianist/composer Dave Flippo is the source of these compositions and arrangements, and he repeatedly relishes and appreciates the process of co-creation that brings his music to the finished stage listeners hear on this recording. His music reflects his eclectic education: a Doctorate and Masters of Music Composition and Theory from the University of Michigan and the Eastman School, a study of world music, plenty of jobbing, and, of course, an ongoing study of all the styles and forms of jazz.

Sometimes some pretty crazy things that happen while the band experiments with these pieces. In the final chorus of Black Hole Sun, by Soundgarden, Dan decided to "scream through his tenor sax" which give the melody a rough, grating sound, much like a distort electric guitar. It really gave the piece some extra bite. In the up-tempo original Spin Control, Heath dug into the syncopated accents that pepper the song, adding a whole other element to the piece. Donn's producer role led him to suggest having Dave open the ballad Pursuit of the Unimaginable with a solo piano improvisation, then building an instrumental crescendo, first adding drums and bass, and finally the saxophone.His playing chops are most visible on Eleventh Heaven, which features the bass on numerous running lines woven throughout the piece.

Of course, there are a multitude of other similar stories that went into the making of the music on this disk. The best suggestion is to just sit back and listen and appreciate the end result.

Better yet, come out to Planet Flippo's CD Release party at Sketchbook Brewery in Skokie at 4909 Main Street in Skokie on Sunday, October 11th from 4pm to 6pm and hear it live.

Hear ALL the tracks at the band's Bandcamp page, which has individual tracks and the full digital CD up for sale: planetflippo.bandcamp.com . Meanwhile, be sure each of the players is cooking up something fresh and delicious for Chicagoan's next musical dish. More fun videos can be found on their Youtube channel: youtube.com/@planetflippo