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Both Nolatet and OrnEtc., ensembles of inspired madness, offer complex, rambunctious music that is accessible and fun. They’re storytellers at heart, and the logic of their stories, and their joy in telling them, keep the listener connected. Located in New Orleans and Santa Fe, respectively, they offer evidence that some very interesting music is being created outside the power centers of New York, Los Angeles, and Nashville.

Nolatet
No Revenge Necessary (Royal Potato Family)
A review
Nolatet includes three stalwarts of the New Orleans scene—Mike Dillon (vibes, marimba, tabla, percussion), James Singleton (upright bass, pocket trumpet, bass melodica), and Johnny Vidacovich (drums, percussion, timpani)—and one adopted member from Santa Fe, Brian Haas (piano, melodica), so you know that there will be a strong rhythmic component undergirding concise, angular, sometimes loopy heads that will be thoroughly aired out. No Revenge Necessary,* the group’s sophomore follow-up to Dogs,* finds them in full-throated polyphonic conversations that reference a wide range of musical history, from New Orleans funk to psychedelia to swing to postmodern art song. It’s all anchored in the Singleton/Vidacovich rhythm section that has been working together for decades with everyone from Professor Longhair to Astral Project. Groove is guaranteed. Listen to the rhythmic foundation they provide for Dillon’s improvisational exploration in his “Elegant Miss J,” which starts out as a swing tune and comes to an apparent end . . . before it takes off on another beam of light entirely into Philip Glass territory. Vidacovich is a member in equal standing in the quartet’s conversations, and he’s never shy about letting you know exactly how he feels. Both Haas and Singleton write lines with a Monkish cast that invite development (and often a smile) and support it as far out as anyone might want to go. Check out Singleton’s stinky, off-kilter bass line in his skewed children’s song, “Black Sheep,” that launches Dillon and Haas through harmonic kaleidoscopes in their solos. Haas’s “Pecos Wilderness” offers the album’s most beautiful melody and a feeling of deep affection that Singleton underscores with his arco bass. On Singleton’s urgent “Malabar,” Dillon delivers a ripping vibes solo and Vidacovich sets himself on fire before Singleton’s arco bass over Dillon’s tabla soothes the anger, leading into a gentle march that resolves into a hopeful conclusion. Like the gentler title track, composed by Haas, it’s emblematic of the album’s overarching theme, which is to find a way to get a fragmented, off-track world back on track.

OrnEtc.
These Times (indie)
A review
Originally formed two years ago by drummer Dave Wayne, an autodidact who has dedicated himself to the outer edges of rock and jazz, and NYU-trained bassist Noah Baumeister, whose specialties range from post-rock to electronica to country, OrnEtc. initially focused on celebrating the “challenging-but-joyful” music of Ornette Coleman, as the press release says. The group has since expanded its repertoire to include an impressive collection of original compositions in the same vein, which are featured on the group’s premiere recording, These Times.* Wayne and Baumeister, whose rock roots spice their performances, anchor the proceedings, with Baumeister playing Noel Redding to Wayne’s Mitch Mitchell. As did those two members of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Baumeister locks down the pulse, allowing Wayne to roam at will, and roam he does, splashing rhythmic commentary in all the right places, poking and prodding the others as needed. This formidable engine holds the form together, allowing cornetist Dan Pearlman, a longtime figure on the avant-garde scene, saxophonist Chris Jonas, whose credentials include performing and recording with such luminaries as Anthony Braxton, Myra Melford, and Cecil Taylor, and vibraphonist Lee Steck, a drummer by trade who is comfortable in a wide variety of genres from straight-ahead jazz to Afro-pop, to color outside the lines. Steck, who is successfully making his first appearance as both vibraphonist and composer, raises the tension by adroitly playing against the rhythm and across bars. Many of the compositions—and each member contributes at least one—are built on long lines that, to steal from Whitney Balliett’s line about Monk, feel like frozen improvisations. The music is perfumed with dabs of Memphis soul (Baumeister’s “Love,” whose melody keeps eluding expectations, and Steck’s “Amargosa”), funk (which creeps into Jonas’s “Les Trois Petits Cochons” and Wayne’s “Winter’s Riddle”), swing (“Pearlman’s “Corner Boys”), and Latin jazz (Steck’s “Twisted”). The arrangements are crisp and texturally rich. The improvisations, which develop along melodic rather than harmonic lines, are rigorously logical in their outward-bound excursions, and they benefit from the careful listening of the accompanists. All of it is played with a joyful abandon that keeps the listener engaged.

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