Thursday, June 30, 2016

Recording: Brodie West Quintet

Artist: Brodie West Quintet

Songs: Untitled #4 + Afro Blue [composed by Mongo Santamaría, arr. John Coltrane]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (Wolf's Nacho Wednesdays), June 22, 2016.

Brodie West Quintet - Untitled #4

Brodie West Quintet - Afro Blue

Once again reinforcing his recent fascination with rhythm, this newly-formulated quintet saw saxophonist Brodie West flanked by a pair of percussionists: Phil Melanson (heard here on the left) and Nico Dann (on the right). A quartet of new (and yet-untitled) pieces gave them plenty of chances to explore the sonic possibilities, whether creating a languid mood in the first piece with hypnotic in-phase/out-of-phase cymbal washes or starting off the last of them (as heard here) like a chase scene in a cartoon. Tania Gill (piano) and Josh Cole (double bass) provided the musical grounding while West would sometimes close his eyes and nod to the rhythms and at others climb on top of them to play like a log roller at work. The set closed out with a nod to Coltrane at Birdland in a rollicking run through "Afro Blue".

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