Music and Recording Reviews

Out Of/Into: Motion I
Immanuel Wilkins, alto saxophone; Joel Ross, vibraphone, marimba; Gerald Clayton, piano; Matt Brewer, bass; Kendrick Scott, drums
Blue Note 00602465981971 (reviewed as CD). 2024. Out Of/Into, prods.; Qmillion, eng.
Performance ****½
Sonics ****½

It would be an understatement to call Out Of/Into an all-star band. It contains the best alto saxophonist and vibraphonist to enter jazz in the 21st century, a top-five pianist, and an A-list bassist and drummer. (Read their names above.)

All-star bands are often three-ring circuses, high on individual flash but lacking in ensemble identity and purpose. But Out Of/Into performed nearly 40 concerts in 2024, on a tour in celebration of the Blue Note label's 85th anniversary. It is, unmistakably, a band.

The set list is seven originals, four by Gerald Clayton and one each by Joel Ross, Matt Brewer, and Kendrick Scott. Clayton's pieces in particular are more than provocative frameworks for improvisation. They are detailed, sophisticated, varied ensemble forms. "Ofafrii" sounds like a hard-charging Blue Note anthem from the past, but with more moving parts and startling shifts. "Second Day" and "Bird's Luck" are postmodern ballads, intriguing in their melodic relativism. These tracks reveal how five special talents are willing to dedicate themselves to the collective whole, as they interact and enhance one another and layer their compelling voices.

Of course, space does open for extended solos. Scott starts his own "Synchrony" with a long, thoughtful dissertation, developed from a vast array of drum sonorities. Ross follows with a flowing, sideways-tumbling immersion in vibraphone stream of consciousness. When Immanuel Wilkins takes over, his impossibly fast, discrete notes blend into waves of radical lyricism. Brewer's "Aspiring to Normalcy" begins with a rapt, searching bass soliloquy. Then Wilkins, that wild man, turns beautifully inward. Then Clayton floats away, free. Motion I cries out for a Motion II.—Thomas Conrad

Ambrose Akinmusire: Honey From a Winter Stone
Akinmusire (trumpet), Kokayi (vocals), Sam Harris (piano), Chiquitamagic (synthesizer), Justin Brown (drums), Mivos String Quartet
Nonesuch 075597905984 (CD). 2024. Akinmusire, prod.; Jason Orris, Adam Munos, David Darlington, engs.
Performance ****
Sonics ****

The Blue Note and Nonesuch catalogs have shared a few artists: Bill Frisell, Don Byron, Joshua Redman, and, most recently, trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, whose move to Nonesuch came after several albums on Blue Note, reflective of more expansive vistas. His latest, Honey From a Winter Stone, has an unusual rhythm section: piano, drums, synth (standing in for bass), string quartet, and sprechstimme—another formation for Akinmusire the conceptualist. In nine albums, he has yet to repeat a band, though partners are drawn from earlier releases.

Regal trumpet and piano open the first track, "muffled screams," but Akinmusire often cedes the foreground to his collaborators, akin to a first violinist moving to the conductor's stand. This track soon gives over to mostly strings and voice—trumpet a ghostly presence, a sample on Akinmusire's own hip-hop track before it reappears as a rejoinder toward the end of the song's 15-minute-plus duration.

The focus is squarely on the compositions, such that the second piece, "Bloomed (the ongoing processional of nighas in hoodies)"—Akinmusire has always been an intriguing titler—is all string quartet for nearly half of its length before trumpet, synth, and drums parachute in then airlift out as suddenly for the last two minutes.

"MYanx."'s deep house is leavened by Kokayi's testifying, frenetic strings and Akinmusire's most majestic playing; "Owled" shows that symphonic soul could be the next big thing; "s-/Kinfolks," embodies the Art Ensemble of Chicago credo "Ancient to the Future." Akinmusire, open or muted, floats over various combinations or alongside socio-conscious rap, never rising above a simmer yet blazing like a fissioned atom.—Andrey Henkin

Lars Danielsson/Verneri Pohjola/John Parricelli: Trio
Danielsson, bass, cello; Pohjola, trumpet; Parricelli, guitar
ACT 8000-2 (reviewed as CD). 2024. Andreas Brandis, prod.; Arnoud Houpert, eng.
Performance ****
Sonics ****

In the American jazz community, it is easy to miss great European trumpet players like Verneri Pohjola of Finland. The same might be said of Lars Danielsson, whose country is Sweden and whose instrument is the acoustic bass, on which he has one of the most voluptuous sounds in jazz. The third player on this album is an astute, lyrical guitarist from the UK, John Parricelli.

One of the best places to discover such artists is ACT, the second most important German jazz label, after ECM. Trio, in its ruminative, concentrated aesthetic purity, is a quintessentially ACT undertaking. It was recorded at Château Palmer, described as a "wood-paneled salon" in a "legendary wine estate ... in a secluded corner of the Bordeaux wine region of France." The serenity of the setting gets into the music. But serenity does not equate to disengagement. The pristine melodies of the tunes here (half written by Danielsson) are alluring but require alert listeners because they keep evolving. On Danielsson's "Le Calme au Château," the composer's bass, in its lingering resonance, establishes an atmosphere of pensive solemnity. But then Pohjola's trumpet lines, as they veer and digress, introduce new domains of feeling. Pohjola can be a wildly exciting player. On Trio, he beautifully sustains a measured version of his natural intensity, one in keeping with seclusion.

All three players make subtle, surprising movements throughout the concise forms of these songs and enlarge them from within. On Danielsson's "Cattusella," Parricelli's glowing guitar notes portray the ethereal, hovering theme from which Pohjola derives forceful, dramatic variations.

Music this pretty could be considered escapist. But in times destructive to the spirit, occasional escape is rational.—Thomas Conrad

Joe Syrian Motor City Jazz Octet: Secret Message
Syrian, drums; 11 others
Circle 9 C90009 (CD). 2024. Doug Beavers, prod.; Chris Sulit, eng.
Performance ****
Sonics ****½

The current worldwide jazz scene is bursting at the seams with creativity. Innovation rules. The phrase "avant-garde jazz" is no longer descriptive because it comes in so many iterations. In our present moment, jazz is serious business. Listeners are expected to work hard, pay close attention, and be prepared for challenges.

Which is why Secret Message is so welcome. It is a feel-good album. Joe Syrian's Motor City Jazz Octet is a kick-ass little big band whose sensibility is retro-swing rather than cutting-edge. These eight accomplished musicians like to have fun. They carry on like party animals.

Syrian is a drummer, based in Detroit. He has operated his octet for over 10 years. A long list of the best jazz players in Michigan has passed through it. Secret Message is a departure, in personnel but not in style. He uses established East Coast people like pianist Adam Birnbaum, guitarist Paul Bollenback, and tenor saxophonist Tim Ries.

Syrian's repertoire choices buck current trends. Instead of recording his own compositions, he offers pop tunes and standards in crisp, fresh versions by six sharp arrangers. The Beatles' "Here, There and Everywhere," a tender love song, hits surprisingly hard. Trombonist Doug Beavers, Ries, and Birnbaum bear down intensely. Leon Russell's "This Masquerade," in David Caffey's dynamic arrangement, surges with new power. Baritone saxophonist Carl Maraghi, Ries, Birnbaum, and Bollenback all make entertaining, intelligent statements. One reason this album is so accessible is that the solos are concise. Improvisers get in and get out, and while they are in, they burn. Dave Hanson's arrangement of "Bye Bye Blackbird" both celebrates and reimagines a time-honored song.

Another reason this album is so fun is the squeaky-clean, in-your-face sound by engineer Chris Sulit.—Thomas Conrad

Arild Andersen: Landloper
Andersen, bass, effects
ECM SSR-2045 (CD). Manfred Eicher, prod.; Espen Høydalsvik, Martin Abrahamsen, Arild Andersen, engs.
Performance ****½
Sonics ****

Fun fact about Manfred Eicher: Prior to founding ECM, he worked as a bassist. That experience led him to be one of the greatest champions of this brotherhood of "upright" citizens, to which he has devoted nearly seven percent of his catalog. Further, Eicher has been crucial in advancing that noblest of art forms, the solo bass recital.

Norway's Arild Andersen's first appearance on ECM was in 1970; his first date as leader was in 1975. Landloper is his 17th album. It is his first solo outing. He augments his acoustic instrument with real-time digital looping. The opening track, "Peace Universal" by Bob Moses, was recorded in his home studio. The remainder of the album was performed live at Oslo's Victoria Nasjonal Jazzscene.

Landloper falls squarely in the middle of a spectrum that has Ron Carter's explorations of standards on one end and Peter Kowald's arco violence on the other. Arildsen plays tunes by himself, Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman, Charlie Haden, and from the Great American and Norwegian folk songbooks. Familiar tunes feel like echoes across a vast fjord. The effects add the glistening of early morning dew under sonorous pizzicato.

Some pieces are played reverently, such as the effectless reading of "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" and his own "Mira," with its foundation of ghostly harmonics. Others are more expansive, including a medley of Ayler's "Ghosts," the traditional "Old Stev," and the title track—also original—which in under eight minutes moves from spectral elegy to puckish dance peppered with double stops, then a frenetic dialogue with loops, closing with a bluesy flourish. The concert ends with a pairing of Coleman's 1959 classic "Lonely Woman" and Haden's "Song For Che," an understated masterstroke.—Andrey Henkin