You don’t need to be a maths wizard to work out that an album of 40 minutes made up of nine tracks gives you – by jazz standards anyway – short tunes, but this is not a bad thing because Brooklyn jazz quartet Mute deliver nothing but diamonds and golden nuggets.
This is a tight band, with metronomic drumming, grounded bass and intelligent piano and horn solos that fly. It opens with After You’ve Gone, which has the plodding, laid-back feel of prime Mingus, building a strong foundation that leads to a piano-bass duet. Superb. It’s timeless and a shiny lure before Reaganomics raises the tempo.
The centrepiece of the album is China Boy. Split into two parts, it builds from a piano piece before part two opens with a drum solo and flying bebop sax complete with tickety-tick cymbals and runs reminding of Coltrane and other jazz giants of the 50s and 60s. It comes from nowhere, but it is fantastic. The piano takes up the mantle without missing a beat and then suddenly, the tune leaving as quickly as it arrived, we’re back out.
Throw in a solo bass intro on Not My Blues and this album ticks the boxes that I want from a contemporary jazz album. I want jazz to be exciting and surprising but also to be recognisable as jazz and this album is all of those things. These musicians just like playing together; it’s obvious. There’s a joy that translates through the speakers, from the clarinet playing on Origin Story to the poppy piano groove of Two Way Mirror.
Discography
After You’ve Gone; Reaganomics; Taepyeongso Blues; China Boy (Part I); China Boy (Part II); Not My Blues; Origin Story; Two Way Mirror; After You’ve Gone (Reprise) (40.28)
Kevin Sun (ts, cl, suona); Christian Li (p); Jeong Lim Yang (b); Dayeon Seok (d). New York, 2021.
Endectomorph Music EMM-019
