Saxophonist James Brandon Lewis honors the legacy of Dr. George Washington Carver with a passionate and adventurous chamber work that features unusual instrumentation. Chris Potter’s Circuits Trio brims with optimism and offers a deft mixture of acoustic and electronic. Bassist/composer Skúli Sverrisson and guitarist Bill Frisell offer a peaceful pool for communion with yourself.

James Brandon Lewis
Jesup Wagon (Tao Forms)
A review
The Jesup Wagon was created in 1906 by Dr. George Washington Carver, who envisioned it as a “movable school” that could carry knowledge and new techniques to poor Southern farmers, as Robin D. G. Kelley points out in his excellent notes for James Brandon Lewis’s album Jesup Wagon, itself a movable school of knowledge regarding Dr. Carver’s achievements. This knowledge, however, is delivered in musical notation, with a passionate intensity that at times surpasses the sonic capabilities of the instruments but is nonetheless present and registered. Riding this wagon is the Red Lily Quintet: Lewis on tenor sax, who possesses a healing, heart-piercing timbre in his horn, Kirk Knuffke on cornet, Chris Hoffman on cello, William Parker on bass and gimbri, and Chad Taylor on drums and mbira. Their collective credentials in the realm of avant garde and experimental music would be hard to match, and so would their ability to play this earthy, blues-inflected music with an uncompromising depth of feeling. From the spirit-raising title track through the garment-rending lamentation of “Lowland of Sorrow;” the plaintive and agitated “Arachis,” which offers the peanut as a metaphor for the African experience in North America; the pushing, poking, prodding fever of curiosity in “Experiment Station” (Carver’s name for his lab); the homage of “Seer;” and the final assertion of freedom in “Chemurgy,” Jesup Wagon demands and delivers the honor due to an iconic scientist, educator, and artist.

Chris Potter Circuits Trio
Sunrise Reprise (Edition Records)
A review
For some unknown reason, as my mother likes to say, I had not laid ears on reed man Chris Potter for some time, and worse, I have never reviewed a Potter album or previewed a Potter visit to the Outpost on Musically Speaking. Egad. Well, the five tracks on his latest Circuits Trio release, Sunrise Reprise, with keyboardist James Francies and drummer Eric Harland, made me more than happy to make his reacquaintance. Potter’s inevitable optimism; his thematic articulation; his long, well-engineered lines; and his nimbleness and weight, the latter of which is sometimes transformed into weightlessness, are all welcome. Francies provides keyboard wizardry from synths and acoustic pianos (and is that a Rhodes I hear on “Southbound”?), offering a shimmering electronic curtain behind Potter on the opener, “Sunrise and Joshua Trees,” and terrific comping on the well-grooved “Serpentine.” Speaking of grooves, Harland lays them down deep and clean. The three of them share an equally deep correspondence and independence that keep the music balanced and surprising. The final track, “Nowhere, Now Here—Sunrise Reprise” shares musical DNA with the opener. It features Potter on both flute and sax and holds your attention for all 24 minutes and 25 seconds because these gentlemen are terrific storytellers. Near the end, Potter does the musical equivalent of speaking in tongues before the trio finally brings you gently to rest. From beginning to end, Sunrise Reprise offers an ear-tickling, heart-lifting trip.

Skúli Sverrisson and Bill Frisell
Strata (Newvelle Records)
A review
The Icelandic bassist Skúli Sverrisson, maybe best known as musical director for Laurie Anderson, and the American guitarist Bill Frisell had never played together or even met prior to the studio session for their new album, Strata. You wouldn’t know it from the way the two fit together into a single unit. Sverrisson wrote the 10 pieces for Frisell, and he seems to have tapped into a deep vein of feeling in the guitarist. The duet tracks, which occasionally feature some overdubs, are uncomplicated, deceptively simple, hard to classify, but they resonate in a profoundly peaceful way with something well below the surface, inviting listeners to drop into themselves for a visit. From the opening oasis of “Sweet Earth” to the quiet urgency of “Ancient Affection,” with its surprising harmonies and textures, the loping dream of “Afternoon Variant,” and the mysterious sonic penumbra in the safe and sunlit closer, “Her Room,” Strata takes full advantage of Frisell’s concision, clarity, and humanity, offering a haven that reveals itself more fully on each successive hearing. Previously released only as part of a $400 set of LPs from Newvelle Records, the album is now available digitally on all major streaming/download services.

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© 2021 Mel Minter