For The Love Of It All

Album review

With love and faith as guiding principles, jazz trumpeter Brandon Woody writes hybridized music injected with drama, hip-hop rhythms, and a decidedly lyrical edge.  The diverse vision of this tireless, Baltimore, Maryland, native is encompassed in his debut, For The Love of It All. 

The song titles alone tell the story. "Wisdom; Terrace on St. Paul St.," "Real Love, Pt 1," and "Perseverance" all hint at the struggle and determination that Woody has shown in building a career with his band, UPENDO. With a technique and tone that have been compared to the playing of Roy Hargrove and Freddie Hubbard, Woody who has also done film score work and collaborated with brands like Nike and Calvin Klein. He opens with the instantly likable, near-pop of "Never Gonna Run Away." With guest Imani-Grace repeatedly singing the title phrase, Woody pours on the ideas through his horn with drummer Quincy Phillips adding flashy cymbal accents.  Woody exhibits his dramatic playing on "Perseverance" by bunching notes together between a gentle chorus.  Devoted to a certain accessibility, he nevertheless carefully keeps his solos intricate and his often-sweeping conceptualizations edgy enough to convince even the purest jazz believer. Another strength is the chemistry between the members of UPENDO, particularly the fruitful give and take that Woody and keyboardist Troy Long show in the eight-minute-plus "We, Ota Benga," which tells the story of a man from the Congo who was brought to the U.S. in 1904 and exhibited in the Bronx Zoo alongside the monkeys. The wonderfully inviting closer, "Real Love, Pt. 1," what Woody has called "the essence of the group," is For The Love of It All's most straight-ahead post-bop exploration. Phillips and bassist Michael Saunders provide the frame for Woody's fast lead phrases and Long's astral chords. Organized around a theme that persists until its hushed closing, this is also the album's most fully realized track. A lucid, uncomplicated debut from a tenacious talent. © Robert Baird/Qobuz