Brandon Ross, Of Sight and Sound, Sunnyside ***1/2

When it comes to what sounds ''really modern'' and what amounts to ''obvious newness'' at the moment - a big subject and it usually doesn't involve (no matter how much we all love to hear them) anyone singing show tunes from the 1940s and 50s or a …

Published: 6 Feb 2023. Updated: 14 months.

When it comes to what sounds ''really modern'' and what amounts to ''obvious newness'' at the moment - a big subject and it usually doesn't involve (no matter how much we all love to hear them) anyone singing show tunes from the 1940s and 50s or a classic big band approach unless you just want to go retro. Styles like electronica especially couched in a language that allows a lot of space and room for new notions of harmony are making more headway and changing our sound perceptions bit by bit.

Take Of Sight and Sound inspired by abstract painter Ford Crull that boiled down to its raw ingredients is a guitar, bass guitar and drums album moulded via sound design that lifts an album from being something off the peg to a sound that is more customised and potentially new.

Brandon Ross, who has been inspired by Butch Morris' conduction innovations, is here in his band Pendulum with his brother bass guitarist Kevin Ross and drummer Chris Eddleton. Think Jonny Greenwood a bit, Vernon Reid, Bill Frisell perhaps but the whole thing is also avant garde too. Floaty, very detailed harmonic layers, multi directional drumming and roaming bass plus lots of reverb artfully deployed that creates quite a wall of sound are part of the spell conjured. The tense three part 'Toil' suite sets the feel of the album and here you get a sense of dystopia and again that word space.

Ross is a remarkable player who has been active making records since the 1970s notably on an earlier record of his own for Sunnyside almost a decade ago For Living Lovers and as a sideman on some very cult Kip Hanrahan records, the Henry Threadgill Very Very Circus classic Spirit of Nuff… nuff and some of Cassandra Wilson's finest work including the classic Blue Light Till Dawn and in the band Harriet Tubman especially on the remarkable The Terror End of Beauty. An original work that creates its own world and is the sort of release given this that often develops word of mouth traction. Certainly jazz needs change and albums like Of Sight and Sound at least address the issue rather than reheat past glories or even worse fake all feeling. But don't go looking for easy answers here on a challenging work. No one here is in the business of delivering platitudes.

Updated 12 February 2023: Brandon Ross got in touch and says: ''Firstly, thanks for the review! Appreciate the illumination of your take on the music. I wanted to clarify something that was misrepresented, as I understood it - Hardedge - soundesign, is an ensemble member, deploying sonic events/elements in real time - not as a post production participant. ALL the sonic dimensionality in the music, occurred in live performance, as described by my liner notes.''

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Secret Sun Sessions, Secret Sun Sessions Live, This is the Modern World, WFMU, DJ Trouble ***1/2

How eclectic a listener are you, even within the broad band of the jazz and even wider again ''improvised, new music'' genres - do you have red lines? In some ways certainly if you like avant garde styles it is harder to embrace the more melodic …

Published: 5 Feb 2023. Updated: 14 months.

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How eclectic a listener are you, even within the broad band of the jazz and even wider again ''improvised, new music'' genres - do you have red lines? In some ways certainly if you like avant garde styles it is harder to embrace the more melodic music at the other end of the spectrum on a scale when 10 is atonal and 1 is nursery rhyme. Of course you can have your cake and eat it, why not. Nobody has to be doctrinaire in terms of their own musical manifesto and you always get albums that are difficult to love even if they correspond with your usual preferences as a listener. Tunes here come in three strands: by Kenny Wollesen alone, in collaboration with Jesse Harris and the outlier a more skippable track at the end by reedist Ben Goldberg. Harris is an ultra melodic writer, Wollesen more coming with a reputation of experimentalism.

Recorded for the This is the Modern World, DJ Trouble WFMU Jersey City radio show the voicings coloured mostly by Wollesen's vibes or Harris' sometimes Julian Lage-esque guitar lines where the tonic is king and each tune has a clarity whether beginning middle and end relatable or more taking the scenic route, Michael Coleman on piano and synths is less obvious (except on the Mulatu Astatke-like 'Cabriolet') in the blend while bass guitarist Jeong Lim Yang and drummer Tim Kieper adopt more collegiate supportive roles and yet when needed Kieper is prominent particularly on 'Empress' and is appealingly Adam Nussbaum-like when playing just inconspicuous but still significant time.

The tunes are, speaking generally, incredible, Wollesen's solo on 'L' Amoureux' is a wow moment even when it's over before you know it but there isn't much extended improvisation at play. The quintet prove anyone can tell a story just as effectively instrumentally without a singer. And hold that thought because Wollesen and Harris' 'Cavalier da Baton' is so personality laden you feel you have just read a novel Lennon and McCartney could have written in its winsome, wistful character laden appeal.

You get more a pentatonic sense on 'Cabriolet' that gives the ensemble mood a chattering edge to it especially when Kieper's beat becomes that bit more brittle and there are off-kilter harmonic fills snuck in within the fabric of the sound that catch your ear and allow the piece more a freaky sense of sub plot. 'Fifty Five' is against the odds quite Ramsey Lewis-like and the sweet soul music the band are capable of melts like the finest Tupelo honey.

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