Sunrise Reprise

Album review

Anyone else would be content to be a master of the sax: but Chris Potter is a glutton. On Circuits, which came out in 2019, tenor and soprano weren't enough for him: he also got stuck in with clarinet, flute, sampler, guitar, keyboards and percussion! With James Francies on keyboards and Eric Harland on drums, the kid from Chicago led his trio through some inspired, groovy exchanges. Nothing over the top: just intense, rich music - and that's what we're getting now, two years on, in Sunrise Reprise from the Chris Potter Circuits Trio. In September 2020, a short window between lockdowns allowed the three musicians to get together to record five themes. For months, these three musicians had been deprived of the chance to play live: they were hungry. It is little wonder then that they produced this creative torrent that lasted for over an hour! “All of a sudden we’re in the studio," Potter recalls. "I felt such a release, a sense of freedom to create and to express ourselves collectively. It’s this that has been the central part of this album – it’s about the trio, our shared energy, reflecting our own thoughts and feelings from all that’s going on in the world. Eric, James, and I really needed to PLAY, to try to put into music all the intense feelings of the previous few months. The close bond we had developed playing this music together on the road led to what we felt as a cathartic musical experience in the studio, documented in one very special evening." From the first seconds of Sunrise and Joshua Trees, with its electronic post-futurist vibe, the artists' musical languages start enmeshing and intertwining. Chris Potter gets off to a magnificent start, unhurried, getting the placement of every note just right. Both Harland's drumsticks and Francies' keyboards are controlled and purposeful. On Serpentine, they really let rip, but the final, pared-down ballad, The Peanut with its generous, easy space, is where their exchanges really become sublime. For all the abruptness and freedom of this session, the artists never rush: on the contrary, everything here is carefully weighed out, thought through - and simply beautiful. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz