Rich Rosenthal, Falling Up

Rich Rosenthal's album Falling Up (MSK 301) has real bite to it but also enough bark to warn you to pay attention. It's in a free-ish jazz zone without necessarily getting completely into the fire music aspect. The electricity and energy of Rosenthal's guitar has enough jolt that there is a near-rock edge, the compositions are well thought-out, the solos are hip and the rhythm section cooks with an easy sort of lope or undaunted determination, depending.

All compositions are by Rich save for Steve Lacy's "No Baby" and Jimmy Lyons' "Wee Sneezawee" (both good choices, underperformed in the repertoire). Rich is joined by the "talent-deserving-wider-recognition" Joe Giardullo on soprano. Then there's Craig Nixon on upright bass and Matt Crane at the drums.

Rich solos with an outside edge, sometimes with a kind of deliberation that works well and is a little rare in this kind of guitar style; at other points he swings for the musical fences and connects. He picks some hip chord voicings and can wind a phrase in ways that take it to the edge and keep your attention. Joe is someone to hear too, as always, and sounds well.

It's a disk that goes from station-to-station without flagging. It's a very nice guitar effort and it's equally cool on the group togetherness end.

Listen in, listen on...

Guitarist Luis Lopes and Afterfall in an Avant Set

We recently encountered guitarist Luis Lopes as part of the Humanization 4tet (see January 13th posting). He returns today as a member of the equally adventurous Afterfall (Clean Feed 208). It's a free-avant encounter with a quintet that includes Lopes, Joe Giardullo on soprano and tenor, Sei Miguel on pocket trumpet, and a rhythm section of Benjamin Duboc on upright bass and Harvey Sorgen on the drums.

This is five-way interaction, a cooperative date all the way, with all five members sharing the composing credits. What that translates into for the listener is seven musical vignettes, each somewhat different in mood. The freetime feel is pretty constant, with time sometimes more overtly implied and sometimes in a free falling zone. Some numbers are sparser and more reflective, some more extroverted and energetic. Sei Miguel's always muted pocket trumpet forms a good contrast with Giardullo's shining soprano or gruff tenor and Lopes' sound-color oriented guitar.

A high point is Giardullo's tenor work in "American Open Road with a Frog," where he is is rippingly muscular over churning drums and bass. "American Tryptich" finds some room for Lopes' spicy, floating chord voicings and chopping staccato-line crafting, some after-Miles-and-Cherry tartly stating-the-fact trumpet inventions and grainy bowed bass. "Return of the Shut Up Goddess" brings a storm of bowing thunder and weighted brushwork underpinning more Miguel muted eloquence and then vibrato-laced sustained guitar lines of a rough beauty. There are plenty of such moments, each one with a slightly different mix of musical voices, shades and degrees of emphasis.

This is a sleeper. It is so subtle in many ways one has to listen a number of times before the logic of the improvisational language truly speaks to you. But I found that it did after a time. And what it said was most definitely worth hearing.