Supersonic Rainbow Fiend

As I was contemplating this piece, sitting with the three albums being inspected, I was struck with a lot of thoughts around my journey to Jazz. Recently I mentioned my first hearing Kind of Blue and my inability to grasp the beauty of it at the time. I was a high schooler who was consumed with rap just beginning to step away from the stars of the era and digging into an underground that was vibrant and diverse. I had more digesting to do.

This is a repeated pattern throughout my sonic history. I find some music that strikes a chord and I dig in. The napster fueled download era was a dream. Then came the blog era which also rewarded this kind of deep dive. I was trapped in a purgatory of my own making as streaming took rise and was fairly tuned out from anything that wasn’t equally dark and hopeless.

As I emerged from that darkness and began hearing names I hadn’t heard of before, exploring this world of modern Jazz became the new quest. Initially it seemed too vast, too much. But I slowed down and let things arise as they might, sat with projects longer, investigated labels with a different ear, one of excitement and hope that mirrored the changes arising in my day to day life.

Simultaneously, I was reconnecting with my vinyl collection which was spared sale in my destitute state. In it I found a multitude of styles of this music. Most of it was bought cheap in the early aughts with dreams of finding the next dope sample. How was I to know that almost two decades later it would both save my life and open me up to a modern worldwide renaissance in the genre.

I never quite know how to answer the question of how I discover new music. I read a lot of websites, I’m a Bandcamp addict, I tune into radio shows. I buy new records and read the liner notes. In this interconnected age it all feels very exactly that, connected and merged to a point of blur.

As I started reading the newly launched Wax Poetics I was delighted to see a promotion for a relatively new Jazz focused magazine out of Finland. I bought one issue and then all of the rest. A new door was opened.

We Jazz is a record shop, label and magazine based in Helsinki. While I’ve done my fair share of exploring corners of the globe seeking this new Jazz sound, I hadn’t made it there. I was intrigued by the presentation of their work, the quality of their magazine and their dedication to pressing wax. I started pressing play and was even more delighted. Where had I been, how had I missed this label? I had a lot of catching up to do, and the reality is I will never absorb their entire catalog.

When I first put on Gard Nilssen’s Supersonic Orchestra live album Family I was blown away. Big Band style Jazz is not a style I’m very familiar with. I’m unsure of where they fall in the tradition but that doesn’t matter for my listening pleasure. What I do know is there is an undeniable energy flowing within this set.

The opening salvo of horns screams for attention and the fun just keeps on grooving. Featuring three drummers and EVERYONE credited with percussion contributions there is rhythm forever. This record swings and sways, holding space for joy and celebration. When I first read that it was a 17 piece band I was taken aback. I’m used to four and five piece groups, perhaps even the occasional six to eight piece group but a band this large and this dialed into each other is awesome.

The album title feels fitting here as it is clear that these players are familiar and tight knit. I can only imagine the amount of fun they have on the stage and sheer pandemonium that takes place in the crowd while watching them do their thing. You have to move to this music, you have to smile to this music. At times it may feel cacophonous but it always remains moving and flowing. The interplay between everyone, the room they give each other to do their own thing and then come together, it’s inspiring and uplifting. Even in the quiet and somber moments there is love reverberating outward.

Throughout my journey with Jazz this has always been the inspiration and drive to dig deeper. When I first heard Kind of Blue I wasn’t listening for the emotions an instrument and its player can convey, I doubt I even grasp that concept. As I’ve dug into this modern scene I’ve been searching for vibes and energies, be them joyous, mystic or something else ineffable. I first found it in hiphop beats, and today my ears feel attuned for vibrations that are communicating with the soul.

ENEMY delivered their third album The Betrayal via We Jazz in late September. Comprised of Peter Eldh on bass, Kit Downes on piano and James Maddren on drums, this record is beautiful. As I’ve listened through it repeatedly I’ve felt as though this is the first project on We Jazz that fits right in with so much of what I’ve been discovering lately. That is not to say that it is a carbon copy of what so many others are doing, more so that it is playing with the same kind of notes, tones and rhythms prevalent today.

There's a cohesion to the project as a whole which I suspect stems from the players familiarity with one another and that the record was recorded in one day, with little rehearsal. The most catching thing to my ear is their playing with rhythm. They capture a swing that isn’t easy to do. Songs feel like they are dancing. Beyond this irresistible pull of motion, each player feels a part of the whole. Downes' piano oscillates between vibrant and melancholy. Eldh’s bass is pronounced and impactful. Maddren’s drums are fast and full.

The Betrayal screams “Dilla Time” to me. There is a vibrancy to their sound and a life within the songs that is unignorable. This may be due to how much they pack into them. Solo’s are sparse, the majority of the twelve tracks on the album are under three minutes long yet there is a hypnotic effect produced from the very beginning. Every song feels like its own universe. The album doesn’t get old. With each listen a new element pops into your ear and things feel brand new again. 

This is what is so exciting to me about all these new sounds that abound, the freshness to which the style is being approached. The depth of creativity that could be blasting out of your speakers at any given moment is invigorating. When I first started digging into this modern Jazz world I was just looking for some instrumental gems to read a book to, I didn’t think I was stumbling into a realm of adventurous, new audio pathways. Around the world today there are pockets of this new jazz sound, all pulling on similar threads but executing them with the uniqueness of a world inhabited by 8 billion individualized souls.

fLuXkit Vancouver (i t s suite but sacred) is perhaps the most daunting of these three projects but well worth the investment. Composed pre-pandemic during an artist residency at Western Front in Vancouver, BC the music was shelved during lock down and finally recorded in June of ‘22. Of note, it was recorded in the Grand Lux Hall at Western Front, a full circle presentation.

Darius Jones, composer and saxophonist, is the leader here but this is a fully integrated affair with the other five players. Upon first hearing about this release, a joint venture between We Jazz and Brooklyn’s Northern Spy, I was taken aback by things that really shouldn’t and ultimately didn’t matter. A Jazz release featuring strings? What’s the deal with the weird title? 

Well, to the first, yes a Jazz release with strings. Two violinists, cello and bass. Not the first time or probably even the thousandth time this has happened. Not sure why it turned me off initially. And the title? I don’t have any answers but who cares? This music is awesome!

It’s dark, it’s intense, it’s loud, chaotic and beautiful. There is a tension throughout this project, a contrast of power as the string quartet and drummer play their parts, but when Jones comes in to blow his horn all the fighting of where my ears want to listen is eradicated. His saxophone playing is aggressive, channeling the spirits of the past and speaking forth in a universal language of tradition not heard in much of the current landscape of modern Jazz. Or at least not in the realms I’ve discovered so far.

fLuXkit Vancouver (i t s suite but sacred) might best be listened to with the lights off, in the dead of winter, eyes closed to fully envision what is unfolding. It’s not for the light hearted, it’s the kind of Jazz my mom will ask me to turn off and my former roommate would give me a side eye for playing at 3 in the morning. But underneath it all is an upheaval of emotion, much like the other projects looked at today, albeit a very different set. The movements and shifts, the utilization of the strings to shimmer some light through the caverns of heft and weight, this music is deep and enchanting. Again, not one to be quickly digested and discarded, best returned too regularly to witness its expansion and growth.

These three albums have little in common sonically. If it hadn’t been for their release via We Jazz I’m unsure of when, or even if, I would ever have heard them. I’m grateful I did. It’s exciting to hear such disparate records all convey this same idea of intense emotion via instrumental Jazz. 

As I dig deeper, ignite new flames, open up to new concepts and embrace this journey of sonic discovery I’m continually blessed with more rabbit holes to investigate and trips for my ears to take. One simple promotional campaign took me all the way to Helsinki where I’ve been caught by a free flowing faucet of music. I’ve long let go of the notion that I could hear all the music ever, today I relish the moments I get to spend with any new piece, and am excited by all that can continue to be found.