Accordionist/organist/composer Gordon H. Whitlow, a member of the avant-garde audiovisual collective Biota, has a distinguished résumé creating what I like to call adventurous music, music that opens previously unknown or unexplored territory. See It Alone, his latest album, introduced to me by Denver guitarist Janet Feder, leverages a group of collaborators he calls Sorry for Laughing. The album vividly occupies a fascinating musical space previously unknown to me.
Vibraphonist Simon Moullier, pianist Dahveed Behroozi, and saxophonist Joel Frahm front trios distinguished by telepathic correspondence among the players and arresting musicality. Three flash reviews (150 words or so) recommend their recent recordings.
Clarinetist Ben Goldberg composes slippery, well-structured music that invites wide improvisation, with a modern sound that subsumes a variety of influences drawn from the well of the past. He describes his latest album, Everything Happens to Be, as an exploration of the facets conjured by the word chorale, touching on a range of influences from J. S. Bach to Louis Armstrong, Ornette Coleman to Paul Motian.
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.
How can one man be simultaneously so sleek and so greasy, so in and so out—and hip, besides? Maybe, in part, it’s his deep appreciation of the past, the ur-music, and his enthusiasm for its unpredictable and ongoing efflorescence. However he does it, trumpeter, composer, arranger, and band leader Steven Bernstein has made this contradictory fusion his trademark, and he’s just announced Community Music, a project that will release four new albums over the course of a year. Recorded in January 2020 with two of his working aggregations, the Millennial Territory Orchestra and The Hot 9, the albums document his arrangements and compositions, many never before heard, and you can check out (and purchase, if you like) the Community Music sampler, now available on Bandcamp, which offers a track from each album.
