Hot Cup
Records has announced the release of Jon Lundbom & Big Five Chord's
newest album Jeremiah on February 10, 2015. This recording is their fifth
studio album and comes on the heels of 2014's live double-album release
Liverevil, which was named "Wild Card Album of the Year" by Greg
Edwards. Like its predecessor, Jeremiah expands the core quintet with the
addition of Hot Cup associate Sam Kulik on trombone and frequent collaborator
Justin Wood on alto saxophone and flute.
Few
groups in jazz today have such a long history of collaboration and musical
growth as Jon Lundbom & Big Five Chord, and the rapport between the
musicians of the core quintet allows affords each member the freedom and security
to take musical risks and constantly push the boundaries of group
improvisation. When looking for other
musicians to add to the Big Five Chord ensemble, Lundbom consistently chooses
improvisers with a long history of personal collaboration. Sam Kulik attended the Oberlin Conservatory
with bassist Moppa Elliott and has performed with members of Big Five Chord for
the last ten years, and Justin Wood has been the most frequent sub for the
front line players in the quintet since 2009.
As was the case with Matt Kanelos on Liverevil, the new members of Big
Five Chord not only fit perfectly into the established aesthetic of the band,
but also provide new energy, creativity, and inspiration.
The
album is named after the biblical Jeremiah (the "weeping prophet")
and the larger idea of a Jeremiad or "long literary work...in which the
author bitterly laments the state of society and its morals in a serious tone
of sustained invective, and always contains a prophecy of society's imminent
downfall" (Wikipedia). On Jeremiah,
Jon Lundbom & Big Five Chord expand their musical palate to include
everything from open-ended free improvisation to standard practice jazz
melodies and harmonies maintaining a core of frenetic collective energy firmly
rooted in the jazz-rock tradition. This
recording marks the first time bandleader and guitarist Lundbom has invited
other musicians (Kulik and Wood) to arrange material for the band, resulting in
an album with a wider emotional range, greater musical variety, and a palpably
collaborative spirit.
The
album opens with "The Bottle," a quintet composition by Lundbom named
after a small town in Alabama, as a nod to bassist Elliott's practice of
titling compositions after towns in his native Pennsylvania. The power and intensity of the longstanding
quintet is on full display as is the compositional style Lundbom has honed over
the past decade. The tune begins with a
series of passages alternating between written and improvised material over a
fragmented figure in the rhythm section before giving way to a guitar solo in
which Lundbom combines serpentine chromatic lines with angular chordal clusters
over Monaghan and Elliott's constantly shifting interpretation of the written
material on the composition's bridge.
The rhythm section returns to the opening figure to support Bryan
Murray's balto! solo which exploits the unique characteristics of this bizarre
instrument.
"Frog
Eye," also named after a small town in Alabama, features the septet
performing a Lundbom composition with a haunting initial melody interspersed
with short improvised sections before opening up for a soprano saxophone solo
by Jon Irabagon. The horn section
provides a transition to a guitar solo in which Lundbom's personal guitar
vocabulary is on display. Few guitarists
of his generation have been able to define their playing as personally as
Lundbom has and his integration of both the jazz and rock guitar languages is
as distinct as it is personal.
The
third in his "Alabama" series, "Scratch Ankle" uses written
passages to isolate two duo improvisation sections, the first between Bryan
Murray on tenor saxophone and Justin Wood on alto, and the second featuring Sam
Kulik on trombone and Jon Irabagon on soprano saxophone.
On
2014's Liverevil, Lundbom arranged several compositions based on Wiccan prayer
songs that proved to be very compatible with the ensemble's performance
style. For Jeremiah, Lunbom asked both
Justin Wood and Sam Kulik to arrange some of these same songs for Big Five
Chord. "First Harvest" is an arrangement
by Wood that features a reharmonization of the original melody, beautifully
crafted for the septet. The arranger is
the first soloist followed by Bryan Murray on tenor saxophone. The tonal and blues-based harmonic structure
provides an opportunity to hear a new side of the ensemble as they navigate
this elegant arrangement.
"Lick
Skillet" (AL) opens with an improvised trombone cadenza showcasing Sam
Kulik's mastery and control of extended techniques, pacing, and compositional
approach. The composition itself is a series of dense chords played by the
horns over a jagged, unsettled series of accents by the rhythm section which
turn out to be part of a 4/4 swing feel.
This rhythmic figure continues under a flute solo by Justin Wood
incorporating a variety of timbral effects and building in intensity
Sam
Kulik's Wiccan payer song arrangement takes several melodies and alters their
rhythms to fit a single rhythmic sequence which repeats with variations
creating layers of contrasting melodies and rhythms as the different layers go
in and out of phase. These composed
sections alternate with space for each of the members of the ensemble to
improvise in a variety of contexts from unaccompanied to buried under dense
ensemble textures.
The
album closes with a live recording of "Screamer" performed by the
quintet. When a group of musicians
builds a strong rapport over many years, it enables greater risk-taking by each
musician. The energy captured in this
recording is wonderful to hear and the ensemble's ability to spontaneously
interact places them among the most exciting bands working today.
Formed
in 2003, Big Five Chord is the primary vehicle for the music of Austin,
TX-based guitarist, composer, and bandleader Jon Lundbom. Jon's music - described as "Hardbop +
Zeppelin + Schoenberg" (Dave Madden, 'SLUG') - is a showcase for his "intense
phrasing and mind-altering solo spots" (Glenn Astarita, 'All About Jazz'),
a "boundary-shattering shot of adrenaline that screws with your head and
messes with your soul" (Jordan Richardson, 'The Seattle PI'). Jon has been called "an idiosyncratic
genius harboring boundary-stretching notions in his musical make up" (CJ
Bond, 'JazMuzic.com'); "hopefully Lundbom will start getting more
attention for his fresh perspective, both as a writer and player" (Mike
Shanley, 'ShanleyOnMusic'), "[Jon's playing brings] new ideas to what jazz
guitar can be" (Paul Acquaro, 'Free Jazz Blog'); "Big Five Chord,
individually and collectively, is one of the most important [ensembles] around
today" (Gregory Applegate Edwards, 'Gapplegate Guitar and Bass Blog').
"Olympic-caliber guitar gymnastics" (Bob Gendron, 'Downbeat'). In
addition to Big Five Chord, Lundbom performs with many other groups, most
notably Bryan & the Haggards.
No comments:
Post a Comment