Label: HighNote
Source: The New York Times
The
pivotal track on “#Jiveculture,” an awkwardly titled but persuasive new
album by the trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, is “Einbahnstrasse,” which you
wouldn’t be wrong to call a ditty. Context is everything: The song was
composed by Ron Carter, the redoubtable bassist, who has recorded it in the company of some exalted peers.
But Mr. Pelt, leading a quartet anchored by Mr. Carter, sounds
undistracted by legacy or history. He’s just here to eat the tune for
breakfast.
Mr.
Pelt, who will turn 40 this year, has been a fierce and self-confident
talent since his mid-20s. “#Jiveculture” is his seventh album on the
HighNote label, and it comes on the heels of several smartly arranged
experiments: bands with two drummers or elegant chamber embroidery or
chiming electroacoustic effects. To the extent that the album has a
concept, it’s simple chemistry — primarily with Mr. Carter, with whom
he’s collaborating for the first time, but no less with Danny Grissett
on piano and Billy Drummond on drums.
Mr.
Pelt has an intensely focused sound on trumpet, a warmblooded gleam.
It’s hard to imagine his sounding much better than he does here on
“Dream Dancing” and “Love Like Ours,” sashaying ballads from two
different songbook eras, each also a platform for the cruising eloquence
of his rhythm section.
Those
tunes appear, like “Einbahnstrasse,” on the front half of the album,
under the heading Part I. (No plans have been announced for a vinyl
release, but the tracks are organized as if with that format in mind.)
The second half consists of four Pelt originals, in a post-bop dialect
loosely traceable to the Miles Davis Quintet of the 1960s, which
included Mr. Carter; “Desire” could almost pass for one of Wayne
Shorter’s compositions for that band.
But
again, Mr. Pelt doesn’t sound hemmed in by that frame of reference;
he’s using it to his own aims. His exploratory fire on “The Haunting,”
like his controlled glow on “Rhapsody,” rings with conviction. It’s
surely no coincidence that Mr. Carter plays brilliantly throughout the
album or that Mr. Grissett rises to a similar level: They have a
fearless leader, and their agenda is clear. Nate Chinen
Baswald's Place
Einbahnstrasse
Dream Dancing
A Love Like Ours
The Haunting
Rhapsody
Akua
Desire
Jeremy Pelt - trumpet
Ron Carter - bass
Danny Grissett - piano
Billy Drummond - drums
