A prolific collaborator, cellist Tomeka Reid is only now gaining recognition as a composer and bandleader in her own right. No artist has done more in the past decade to bring the cello in from the margins to the forefront of the contemporary jazz scene, but this new quartet set – as with its two quartet predecessors, mixing the Chicago of Reid and bassist Jason Roebke with the New York of guitarist Mary Halvorson and drummer Tomas Fujiwara – further showcases her skills by exploring extended forms and highlighting the dialogue between Reid’s cello and Halvorson’s guitar.
Reid used to be averse to electronics, loving the acoustic sound of the cello, but has now embraced the enhanced sonic palette available to her. The three pieces here flow naturally together – Reid sees the whole album as a suite – for she wanted to write longer pieces for this album and incorporate more free improvisation, to keep the tunes but open up the music more.
The opening Turning Inward moves from an abstracted pizzicato entry to a sombre cello passage that makes sense of the title, Halvorson answering with sweeping tuneful statements and great washes of sound. Gradually the two converge in a gorgeously rough-and-tumble pas de deux, Reid sounding almost Billy Bang-like in her joyful, bouncing performance. Robeke puts in a thoughtful bass solo, Fujiwara an insistent presence throughout.
Sauntering Mr Brown makes good use of the quartet’s familiar practice of eliding the usual delineation of foreground and background, removing specific roles from individuals and loosening the conventions that can limit performance. Despite the precise cello pizzicato attack and answering guitar notes, set against Fujiwara’s skittering drums, this is a relaxed performance that truly does saunter along, whoever My Brown may be. The concluding Exploring Outward displays an arresting use of space, quiet abstract passages bleeding into denser group improvisation and some brisk call and response until its dramatically abrupt conclusion. Reid’s playing here is particularly evocative.
This is not a long album, but it is packed with enough detail and event to make you concentrate hard on what it is you are hearing. It’s another impressive set from Reid, and a great leap forward too.
Discography
Turning Inward/Sometimes You Just Have to Run With It; Sauntering With Mr Brown; Exploring Outward/Funambulist Fever (40.16)
Reid (clo); Mary Halvorson (elg); Jason Roebke (b); Tomas Fujiwara (d). New Haven, Connecticut, 20–21 August 2023.
Cuneiform Rune 525
