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Thanks to Kevin Rabas for his kindness; human and musical🎶 E.E. Pointer: Incomplete Fool Kansas City area trumpeter and composer E.E. Pointer has done it again, offered up a very personal, meditative album, quiet but present, and thoughtful in every way. INCOMPLETE FOOL opens with strong, long, full, trumpet notes. It is spacious, trumpet and nothing else. “Hermanos”, a tune reminiscent of late decade Miles, opens the album. It is a tune that then gets busy with something like electronic log drum, then full drum set: the stick-hit closed hi-hat tick-tick-ticking two against three. It grooves--and in a very contemporary way. And Pointer takes his time, stretches. Here is a musician who embraces space. Unlike with River Cow Orchestra, which Pointer steers, none of these tunes are quite as frenetic and busy. This is not aleatoric music of the moment, but something else: more meditation, prayer. Overall, much o f the album is reflective, inward, and trance-like. Although it grooves, the album also serves as a thought vehicle. You can spin the album disc, turn out the lights, and think. Subdued, like whale song, the album is otherworldly, subterranean--cool and smooth, but not drowsy. It is carefully provocative. One song is aptly titled “The Mythos of Whales”. Folksy and intimately personal, quiet, one of the known tunes on the album is a solo piano version of “Shenandoah” and reminds of the Keith Jarrett version--so full of heart, so slow and mindful. Likely, this is the album’s only tune that is not an original, not on of E.E.’s new tunes. These seem to be songs from a man who does not fear being alone. He embraces silences. He’s ok being quiet. There is never that rush-hour push racing these notes, but instead, the pace of a long, long walk. “Portals” begins with glimmers and electronic splashes, like in a Star Trek song and then goes spoken word, E.E. reflecting on a spacey, Beat Kansas City-city night in an Uber. A little like the movie LULU ON THE BRIDGE or Sun Ra’s SPACE IS THE PLACE, jazz and space travel converge in the music and lyrics. Zappa-like, Pointer merges music and cleverly ribald lyrics, but whereas Zappa seems overly pleased with his clever conceits, Pointer seems to wander into late-night Beat revelation: a diner, city lights, pie. Everything has magic. This is an album of a KC jazz musician who has fully come into his own. He does not rush, not a note, not a phrase, not a song. A prolific composer, I find we are better for his tunes. Diary-like experiments, they land like musical kaons. Dream; think; enjoy. —Kevin Rabas CD Reviews. June/July, 2023, JAM

This is a review of my newest project and release, “Dialogues”. It appears in JAM magazine February edition, 2021. Thank you, Kevin! EE Pointer: Dialogues (2020) There is a unified sound to EE's new album. EE combines the trumpet stylings of Miles's electric years with straight-forward (but experimental) jazz poetry ala Jack Kerouac or Anne Waldman or Beth Lisick. There's the taste of "acid jazz," but only a touch, a dab. If you enjoy spoken word poetry or late Miles Davis fare, this album is for you. And it can be played either for ambiance (because it is fun and smooth to listen to) or as an intellectual voyage, where you focus on the words, parsing to find how they make sense of a fragmented, chaotic, postmodern world that’s at sea. If Thomas Pynchon could play trumpet (and loved poetry), this is maybe what he'd make. And no one disputes Pynchon's genius or appeal. If you know and love RIVER COW ORCHESTRA, this is in that vein, EE being the group's trumpeter and front man. And, like John Lennon, sometimes the leader must break off and do his own thing, explore new and alien worlds. In this case, EE may be on his way to join Sun Ra on Saturn. The album is that "out," and refreshingly so. I was surprised at how much EE's playing reminded me of Miles. Along with the intonation and phrasing, there's that imminent sense that EE is in total control. Every sound beneath him is a hum to support that brassy, electric sound--the bell of the horn tacitly tilted down. EE spoke of how Miles inspired him--and eventually this album: "When I walked in (to a party in college), I was blasted by this sound, and I said, ‘What is that?' And he said, 'That's Miles. His latest record.'...BITCHES BREW...and I'm telling you that really got to me. That really made an impression..." One line from EE's song goes, "As he slid away, I realized the squid was fully clothed." EE explained: "I go into a restaurant and ask for squid, and the waiter is a squid...so that's what that was." EE said, "This one (album) was important to me because it involved more...words than I usually use." Sometimes the words and phrases on this album come at you like a "non-linear story line and scattershot approach," as EE calls it, riffing off a method Beat writer William S. Burroughs adopted (or invented) in his middle and later works. A teacher for years, EE talked about when he started playing seriously again. "I retired in 2009...and I told my son I was starting to practice a lot more...and my son says, 'Are you gonna start playing again...Are you scared?...Get out there and try it.' I never would believe I could still be doing this...One of my teachers told me, 'A man doesn't stop playing his instrument when he gets old. He gets old when he stops playing his instrument.'….I'm 68." Over the years, EE taught 6th through 12th grade. "About 200 kids a day," he said. "It's an interesting time, (that age.)" EE is a long-time staple player in KC. With RIVER COW he can be seen playing more "out" gigs around town, especially at The Writers Place, in between poets at the podium. Or backing them. Without EE, a lot of KC poetry would likely be drier. With EE, there's absolutely no falling asleep. There is a sense with this album that we are in someone else's dream, looking through a microscope into someone else's mind. It's better than a book, better than a movie. It is its own thing. Even without the words, it would be remarkable. And with them, it makes its own sense. It calls out in soundbites, but unlike in pop culture ads, it does not ask you to buy something. It asks you to think, to feel. EE recorded this album all solo, all at home, during this pandemic. Before the outbreak, EE got some lessons on how to record: "Dwayne at 'Weights and Measures' studio is just fantastic, and he pushes us in different directions, and from him I learned a lot...about microphone placement and compression...things you don't learn as a trumpet player….I did them all (the tunes) right here (at home)...I've played north of 600-plus times with RIVER COW...and I tell ya, I miss that. I know how Greg plays...how Brent plays…(but here) I did it all myself. Most of the drum parts, I'm playing on an electronic drum pad. Same thing with bass. I use lots of different apps...midi stuff. (And) I did all the trumpet parts live." EE said he does miss gigging live, though: "I'm used to playing with the RIVER COW ORCHESTRA, but that stopped...in 2019 (because of the pandemic)...And I practice and do what I usually do, but I decided to put out some work...This one (album) dropped December 1 (2020)...I just gotta keep working. I get an urge to write something down, and do it...I've actually started another one (album). I have four or five tunes. I wish I were playing with my bandmates." EE's influences range from Miles to Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart to Keith Jarrett, and the album reveals that kind of variety, that kind of kindly riprap (small assorted stones layed down on the hiking trail to keep one from slipping). "I don't have to play of the things my colleagues play," EE said. "I have a decent retirement….I'm lucky enough to sit in my studio...and have the wherewithal to put it down….I have a good time with it, and I'd love for some people to listen to it...I read from one gentleman: 'Truth is perception,' and I thought. You idiot, 'Truth is gravity.' It's not something you perceive...You don't go off a cliff and float...When I'm playing with the COWS…(someone might say), 'That stuff, I can't dance to it'...(But) do you write your poetry for yourself or for everybody else? … If you do something the right way, it should be sweet enough for you...If someone else likes it, that's icing on the cake." The album can be found at EE's website: www.eepointer.net --Kevin Rabas