Jazz Etcetera
A treasure trove of improvised music, including a star-studded turn from Flea and a powerhouse team-up from James Brandon Lewis and The Messthetics.
Flea - Honora
Flea, the long-serving bass player for Red Hot Chili Peppers, is out with his first solo album as a trumpeter and jazz convener. It’s not exactly an exercise in amateurism a la Andre 3000’s flute record. Here’s a snippet of my FLOOD review:
Let it be known from the outset that Flea has been interested in making a proper jazz record for decades, percolating a dream of exploratory and groove-based music for about as long as he’s been a Red Hot Chili Pepper. He took the making of Honora seriously—not only by devoting a couple of years to formal trumpet instruction after studying the instrument on and off since childhood, but also by recruiting a team of studio ringers including next-gen jazz luminaries like guitarist Jeff Parker, bassist Anna Butterss, sax player Josh Johnson, and drummer Deantoni Parks.
Such an illustrious team of session players provides Honora with some jazz bona fides, and Flea himself is no slouch. He sounds most effortless when he’s rocking his bass, but the trumpet playing is more than passable, whether he’s ringing out clarion melodies (“Thinkin Bout You,” a gorgeous Frank Ocean cover) or cranking out nimble bebop riffs (“Morning Cry,” a persuasive original). The overall sound of the record is smooth, lyrical, and thoughtfully textured. It gathers some steam on a couple of knottier grooves (“Morning Cry” again, but also “Traffic Lights,” a slippery funk number with vocals from Thom Yorke), but just as often sounds pensive (“Willow Weep for Me,” awash in synth effects).
While the record skews a little too middlebrow, it has many moments of striking beauty, and Flea beats the allegations of being a musical tourist or mere dabbler. Read the rest of my take over at FLOOD.
My rating: 7.5 out of 10.
The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis - Deface the Currency
Bands don’t get much cooler than The Messthetics, the instrumental power trio who combine the improvisational spirit of jazz with pummeling punk riffs and the blown-out, in-the-red dynamics of hardcore. They found a kindred spirit in James Brandon Lewis, the freewheeling sax man who shares their combustible energy and genre agnosticism; following a team-up album and tour, the foursome are back with Deface the Currency, representing the most volcanic music yet made under the Messthetics banner.
With seven originals spanning 36 minutes, the new album is a powder keg of ragged riffs, skronking horns, and piledriving rhythms. It’s loud from the get-go, with the title track thrumming to life as an atonal jam that quickly coalesces into a propulsive groove. Lewis brings the same turn-on-a-dime soloing that characterized Apple Cores, his endlessly hip and confrontational album from last year, while guitarist Anthony Pirog flirts with menacing thrash metal.
The Messthetics are about volume, but more than that they’re about chemistry, something their Lewis partnership brings to the fore; as such, there is no drop-off in imagination or intensity even when they slow things down a bit, as they do on the shaded, slinking noir “Gestations”— a song that highlights their command for texture. There is a masterful build on “Clutch,” which begins with a quiet guitar drone before erupting into a series of increasingly insane guitar rock crescendos.
They’re at the peak of their powers on “Serpent Tongue (Slight Return),” a song that winks at Jimi Hendrix both in sound and in title. It’s everything these four musicians do together, crammed into an action-packed seven minutes— controlled chaos, addictive grooves, guitar heroics, volatility and coherence all at once. It’s the best music yet from a partnership that seems inexhaustible.
My rating: 8 out of 10.
Other new-and-notables:
Fabiano do Nascimento - Vila. Charismatic young guitarist teams with a full orchestra to pay lavish tribute to his childhood home. Working with the simple melodies and breezy rhythms of traditional Brazilian music, the group finds endless variations of color, shading, and texture. And they wring raw emotion from every note, resulting in an album that aches with romance and nostalgia. My rating: 8 out of 10.
Walter Smith III, Twio Vol. 2. Drawing inspiration from the classic, piano-free trios of Sonny Rollins’ imperial era, saxophonist Smith turns in a rumbling and rangy collection of standards. They’re songs you know by heart, played here with an exploratory spirit and a winking, playful sensibility. Ron Carter and Brandford Marsalis both show up for guest roles. My rating: 7.5 out of 10.
Pat Metheny, Side-Eye III+. There’s no wanting for ambition on Side-Eye III+, which finds jazz/fusion legend Metheny bolstering his working trio with a large ensemble of horns, keyboardists, and singers— on some songs, more than a dozen musicians are present. The songs are similarly audacious, long and episodic works that draw from jazz traditions but also R&B, gospel, and rock. The sprawling nature of the record means it can feel a little noodley in places, and even Metheny’s command of color and shading can’t always save the slow numbers— but for sheer imagination and virtuosity, this one is bountiful. My rating: 7 out of 10.
Melissa Aldana, Filin. Burnished blues and romantic ballads with more than a trace of Cuban lilt. The saxophonist is dusky and lyrical, her small band brings a gentle touch, and a couple of songs are graced by the great singer Cécile McLorin Salvant. An exemplary entry in the after-hours jazz category. My rating: 7 out of 10.