Cascades

Albumbeschreibung

Sometimes it doesn't take a massive reinvention of a genre to create something fresh and revelatory. Such is the case with bassist Christian Dillingham's exhilarating debut for Greenleaf Records, 2023's Cascades. The longtime Chicago performer has played with an array of artists, from John Legend and Alarm Will Sound to drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts and Chicago Sinfonietta. He also took home a Grammy for his work on Kirk Franklin's 2019 album, Long Live Love. What's so refreshing about Dillingham's work on Cascades is that, while the music is wildly creative, it's also deceptively straightforward. Here, he showcases his quartet with saxophonist Lenard Simpson, guitarist Dave Miller, and drummer Greg Artry. Together, they conjure a deeply empathetic and harmonically exploratory atmosphere that doesn't stray far from the acoustic jazz tradition but never fails to surprise. It's as if Dillingham has distilled his varied experiences into his own organic sound, as in the opening "The Bottoms." Inspired by the predominantly Black neighborhood in Ohio where he grew up, the song is built around his funky bass-and-drum groove that sounds like something a hip-hop group might sample. Miller soon joins in with a wiry guitar solo full of layered and overlapping lines that evokes the free-jazz style of Sonny Sharrock. Impressively, Dillingham's group achieves all of this genre-blending energy while still sounding like they are just jamming live at a small club. Equally evocative, the slow jam "Homeostasis," with its noir-ish sax melody, brings to mind the '70s soul jazz of Stanley Turrentine. There are yet more esoteric moments on Cascades, including the hard-driving "One Breathe," with its crunch sax and guitar interplay, and "Lost in Desolation," which sounds like a slow-moving electrical storm in outer space. There's a sense on the album that Dillingham is exploring much more than his musical or artistic identity. It's a feeling he underlines on "Code Switch." Named after the practice of changing one's speech, attitude, or behavior to try to conform to a perceived cultural norm, the song's twangy, country-and-blues melody rises to a soulful mid-song swell, like a gospel or R&B singer in the throws of a chorus, before simmering down to its hushed outro, all of which seems to mirror the cultural dance the title implies. Throughout all of Cascades, Dillingham's warm, woody basslines and distinctive musical personality shine through.

© Matt Collar /TiVo