The People I Love

Album review

Saxophonist Steve Lehman's The People I Love offers a bit of a departure from the provocative, well-executed fusion of modern jazz and hip-hop on 2016's Selebeyone and the large group aesthetics and electronic textures of 2014's Mise en Abîme. On this ten-track set, he re-teams with drummer Damion Reid and bassist Matt Brewer. Pianist and fellow vanguardist Craig Taborn is co-billed as collaborator and fills out the ensemble. The program is unusual in that Lehman and company visit a number of his peers' compositions, including Kenny Kirkland's "Chance," Jeff "Tain" Watts' "The Impaler," and Kurt Rosenwinkel's "A Shifting Design." These are juxtaposed with some re-visioned versions of tunes from Lehman's catalog originally recorded with quartets, quintets, and even an octet; they include "Beyond All Limits," "Echoes," and "Curse Fraction." In addition to three brief, improvised piano/saxophone duets -- "Prelude," "Interlude," and "Postlude" -- that are, in essence, place markers on this journey, there is a jagged cover of Autechre's "qPlay." "Prelude" establishes a ready rapport between Lehman and Taborn, who play with an easy flow that ramps up to showcase their canny articulation of knotty swing on the only new composition here, "Ih Calam & Ynnus." While Reid syncopates across breaks and even junglist rhythms, Brewer establishes a taut pulse. Taborn uses a two-chord vamp to establish an angular groove while he and Lehman exchange lyric phrases, dissonant dialogue, and complementary combinations of color in their harmonic engagement. Brewer's woody solo almost steals the tune though. The cover of "qPlay" rings out of the piano like a dusky bell, but opens to preserve the combinatory articulation of dark and light in a wide variety of gray levels atop the popping and feinting bassline and scattershot breakbeats. This interpretation is fraught with uncertain yet forceful emotion. The version of "Beyond All Limits" sharply contrasts the version on Mise en Abîme. Lehman uses dissonant circular runs to cross Taborn's modal chords and sparse rhythmic voicings before the saxophonist, solo, moves back across the street to driving post-bop accented and punctuated by Brewer. Taborn's solo is not only in the pocket but in the tradition, playing against the contrapuntal snare and cymbal shimmers. Rosenwinkel's "A Shifting Design" is delivered here as a piano-less, modern-day homage to Lehman's great influence Jackie McLean. It commences with the saxist offering the head in a hard-driving avant-bop exchange with Reid, who delivers a clattering, insistent, Art Blakey-esque run before Brewer ushers in the changes. Lehman's solo is full of pathos and humor as he moves across scalar invention into spastic nuances that play on the rhythm section's aggression. It's brittle, funky, squalling, and intense, and may be the best track here. Lehman's catalog is full of gems that challenge de rigueur notions of modern jazz, but on The People I Love, he questions his own processes, trying to find essences and new ways of moving outside pre-designed limits. His quartet here not only offer support but propel the investigation ever forward.
© Thom Jurek /TiVo