Bear Proof, the new release from bassist/composer Todd Sickafoose and my first encounter with his work, offers a chamber music adventure in an exhilarating jazz setting, featuring eight exceptional, genre-fluid musicians and a deep, articulate, and arresting compositional voice.
Two splendid recordings, one from bass clarinetist Todd Marcus’s nonet and the other from cornetist Kirk Knuffke’s new trio, each bring to life the expressive intelligence of both the leaders and their colleagues.
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.
Like Louis Armstrong, drummer/composer Matt Wilson makes no distinction between high art and low art. He probably wouldn’t even accept the use of those terms. So he finds beauty and meaning in just about any piece of music, and he manages to satisfy both the demanding jazz veteran and the tentative jazz newcomer. His quartet—composed of four leaders who manage to work together seamlessly—is always fun, always surprising, and always communicating something behind the music, as it does on the new release, Hug!
Continue readingKirk Knuffke and Ernesto Cervini take acoustic and electric approaches, respectively, in their sophisticated and accessible new releases. Both deliver terrific new compositions (Cervini adds a jazz standard and a Vince Mendoza song), and the compelling performances give me hope for the future of jazz just when I was beginning to think that every solo I was hearing sounded just like the previous one and that complex vacancy was the order of the day.
