Julie Kjaer 3, Dobbeltgaenger, with John Edwards, Steve Noble

If anyone doubts that we are in a kind of renaissance for women jazz artists today, one is not paying attention to the full force of the many fine recordings out there now. I give you another example on this posting in the Julie Kjaer 3 and her CD Dobbeltgaenger (Clean Feed 361). There is one collective improv; the rest are Julie Kjaer compositions. Put on the first track, "Out of Sight" with its puckish Monk-through-Lacy wryness and you know something good is up.

Julie plays alto, John Edwards double bass and Steve Noble drums. It is a tight-knit yet feely loose avant jazz affair with all playing key roles in the totality. Julie's compositions set the table for each segment and her alto has humor, brashness fingerprint tone individuality and facility.

This is music with a swinging pulse much of the time, but then a free openness that expands it all outward. The Julie-John-Steve nexus has a plastic fluidity and a soulful charge that makes for a great listen. There is a parsing segmentality to the tunes that measures things out before the solo cutting takes place, so to speak. And in so approaching the music in this way the trio hearkens back a bit to some of the new thing Simmons-NY Contemporary Five-Shepp outfits in their classic phases, but not in any way a sound cloning so much as a state-of-mind. This is a trio with its own sound but a nod to avant tradition too.

There are plenty of high points and a wholeness to the date that will bring you back to it repeatedly.

Julie Kjaer is yet another original out there that deserves a hearing.

Get this one on your ear-food menu!