Kahil el'Zabar's Ritual Trio, Follow the Sun

When somebody like Kahil el'Zabar releases his umpteenth album, it's for good reason. Part of that is his vision of a music that is contemporary, has Afro roots and insists on hitting grooves while having cutting-edge modernity.

You can hear that clearly and nicely on the Kahil el'Zabar's Ritual Trio offering Follow the Sun (Delmark 5013). The trio itself is an excellent one, with Kahil playing fire-y drum set and hand drums plus his exhortation vocals, Ari Brown a potent double threat on tenor and post-Tyner piano, and the roots-and-soul hard hitting bass of Junius Paul. For this album they are given some very hip impetus with the addition of guests: Dwight Trible on vocals, a singer who phrases and refigures phrases like a real jazzman. Then Duke Payne comes forward as a second tenor with a good feel and compatibility with Ari, and also some bagpipes.

As with Chicago's best musical minds and souls over time, it's equally a matter of how and well as what. That means there's an Afro component here that grooves everything but there's also a Trane-Pharoah rooted swinging exuberance that makes it about immediacy and spiritual depth.

So we get some very nice versions of standards like "Body and Soul" and "Softly as in a Morning Sunrise" but also Shorter's "Footprints". And there are a bunch of nice originals.

The album goes from strength-to-strength. This is good music. Excellent music. There's no flagging and it keeps on sounding better. Give it a spin by all means!

Keefe Jackson's Likely So, A Round Goal

Chicago reedman Keefe Jackson and his all-reed group Likely So score a big one on A Round Goal (Delmark 5009). Seven reedists in the avant jazz realm join forces for a set of all-Jackson compositions, recorded live earlier this year at the Jazzwerkstatt Festival in Berne, Switzerland.

This is music that builds on the reed ensembles of the World Sax Quartet, the Rova Sax Quartet and some of the things Roscoe Mitchell did on Nonaah. Dave Rempis, long-time Jackson associate, is here along with other game cats.

The idea Keefe Jackson had was to get some compositions together that left plenty of room for improvisation and group interaction.

It's fire-y free-flowing jazz in the new Chicago mould that builds out of the brilliance of AACM artists and adds to it. You must play it a few times before it all comes together in your head/ears. But then...look out! Seriously.

Rob Mazurek Pulsar Quartet, Stellar Pulsations

Chicago's Rob Mazurek is one of those select artists out there now whose every recording is interesting, unpredictable and worth hearing. A recent one by his Pulsar Quartet, Stellar Pulsation (Delmark 2018) is no exception.

The quartet is a good one, Rob on cornet, the burgeoning pianist Angelica Sanchez, and a rip-snorting rhythm section of Matthew Lux on bass guitar and John Herndon at the drums.

It features seven memorable Mazurek compositions in an in-and-out zone. There are changes at times, chromatic expansions, rhythmic freedom and infectious pulse as called for, moods alternately blazing and tender, and some wonderful musicianship.

Rob sounds great as ever, Angelica Sanchez shows why she is especially in demand these days with her very pianistic ability to be inventive and striking in whatever the vein, and Matthew and John tear it up.

It's one not to miss. Mazurek is essential and this is one of his best.

Josh Berman and His Gang, There Now

Cornetist Josh Berman gets good ideas. Then he does something good with them. For There Now (Delmark 2016) he's gathered together some of his heaviest Chicago running buddies: Jeb Bishop, Guillermo Gregorio, Jason Stein, Keefe Jackson, Jason Adasiewicz, Joshua Abrams and Frank Rosaly...then gone and rethought some classic Chicago jazz and built some new pieces around those re-thinks.

So we have tunes mostly associated with Austin High Gang members, especially some Eddie Condon recordings from the late twenties, and new Berman pieces. All take on the possibilities of the old meeting the free-out-arranged music that Berman and his cohorts favor.

The result is music that rollicks, rolls, and generally exuberates musical joy of a most extroverted sort. The old-new conjunction works well with the caliber of players here and the arrangements are loose and conducive of collective and individual excellence.

Check out their versions of "Sugar," "Jada" and "I've Found A New Baby" and you'll hear all kinds of elements in play, an out soulfulness that makes "avant old" make perfectly good sense.

It's a damned fine album. One of the best of the year, I think. You should hear it.

Aram Shelton Quartet, Everything for Somebody

There's a loose confederation of Chicago jazz performer-composers at work making exciting music these days in various combinations and altoist Aram Shelton is one of them, though he is Californian much of the time chronologically. He steps forward with a quartet offering (the second album with this lineup) on Everything for Somebody (Singlespeedmusic SSM-011).

It's a well-meshed, energized band of Aram, Keefe Jackson on tenor, Anton Hatwich, acoustic bass, and Tim Daisy on drums.

The music on a number of levels takes the legacy of the early Ornette quartets and puts it in an original place. The rhythm section swings with gusto, the Shelton compositions framework the band well and have a kind of mental staying power, and both he and Keefe solo with their own ears wide open.

It's one of those albums that gives me lots of joy to hear. And it combines old-new-thing and new-new-thing for maximum torque.

Give this one a hearing, by all means.

Jason Stein Quartet, "The Story This Time"

This time out bass clarinetist Jason Stein puts together a program of jazz-ahead standards by Tristano, Monk, Konitz and Marsh and leavens them with five compositions of his own.

The quartet flows over with some of Chicagoland's best in a freebop mood-mode: Keefe Jackson on tenor and contrabass clarinet, an excellent counterpart on the front line; then there's the ace rhythm section of Joshua Abrams and Frank Rosaly. They can swing strongly or free it up as called for.

The band has established a definite synchronous central point to gather round and they spin in and out of its orbit as the spirit and tenor of a particular piece warrants. Jason and Keith's soloing embodies that tendency with a vengeance; nicely on display throughout are their own personal stylistic traits, which do stand out from the pack. Both can play with fire and originality, and they do most definitely here.

It's one of the best Chicago dates this season. It gives notice that Jason Stein has flowered. It's a goody you should not miss.

Starlicker Trio (Mazurek, Adasiewicz, Herndon) Turns Up the Heat On "Double Demon"

The trio Starlicker (as heard on their release Double Demon, Delmark DE2011) is not your usual line-up playing the usual sorts of things. First off the instrumentation is not at all the norm. There's Rob Mazurek on cornet, Jason Adasiewicz, vibes, and John Herndon on drums. What this means in terms of sound has much to do with how the band approaches what could be a somewhat quieter ambiance, especially compared with Mazurek's large ensemble Exploding Star Orchestra (see this past December's blog postings for a review of their last album).

Key here is Adasiewicz's hard-hitting, ringing chordal style on vibes, something he showed us well in his trio recording of several months back (do a search in the blogger search box at the top of the page to call up that review). He hammers and sustains chords with insistent rhythmic propulsion, something like classic McCoy Tyner comping from his harder-edged days, only it's the vibes involved and Jason goes about it his own way. This rhythmic-harmonic vitality and density allows drummer John Herndon to play a harder, dynamically dense sort of ringing kicked style. In turn Rob Mazurek soars atop the intense wash. So the result is a trio that projects with burning hardness, the opposite of a gentile sort of chamber jazz that could come about with this instrumentation. Everybody is playing flat-out HOT and they really tear it up.

The second factor, something always a part of the Rob Mazurek presentation is the quality and through-composed nature of his writing. There are very memorable themes and chordal-rhythmic motifs that permeate every number, giving the band a unified stance and a very recognizable identity.

Now that I've set this up for you the only thing left is for you to take over--and listen. That I most certainly recommend you do because this is a very hip set and it freely devastates as much as it demonstrates what a contemporary ensemble of this sort can achieve. And that is very much. Starlicker is yet another bright light on the Chicago jazz scene.

They are on the last leg of a US tour this month, hitting some key midwestern cities and concluding their travels with a return to Chicago and a final tour appearance there May 23rd.