Label: Otherly Love Records, 2025
Personnel - Bryan Rogers: tenor saxophone; Jonathan Finlayson: trumpet; Victor Vieira-Branco: vibraphone; Matt Engle; bass; Chad Taylor: drums.
Smoke Shifter marks the sixth release as a leader by sought-after drummer and composer Chad Taylor, currently based in Philadelphia. He enlists three other Philadelphia-based musicians—all of them contributing compositions—saxophonist Bryan Rogers, Brazilian-born vibraphonist Victor Vieira-Branco, and bassist Matt Engle, forming the core of his quintet. The exception is New York–based trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson, who orbits this nucleus with magnetic peripheral radiation. Together, they blaze new trails with an unbridled sense of freedom, anchored in both traditional jazz idioms and improvisation.
The album opens with Rogers’ “Broken Horse”, a danceable 6/8 piece incorporating an electrifying pulse and contemporary jazz elements. The saxophonist explains that it was written specifically for this group, and that the robust bass line that sustains it just popped up into his head. With Taylor behind the kit providing a stalwart anchor, the group keeps the music vital and in constant motion.
Engle’s “Avian Shadow” lifts off with soulful openness, initially driven by cross-stick propulsion and a six-beat bass figure that supports the emerging harmonic consonance between horns and vibraphone. Finlayson’s authoritative solo sparks bright responses from Vieira-Branco, while Rogers moves from unpretentiously probing to openly expansive in his narrative.
Taylor, whose musical energy acts as a catalyst for the group’s cohesion, contributes two pieces of his own. The immaculately layered “Waltz For Meghan”, dedicated to his wife, emanates exotic hues in a grand, flowing stream, creating a distinctive atmosphere that fuses chamber jazz with an African-tinged pulse. Under Taylor’s astute brushwork, Engle sounds strikingly melodic, while Rogers delivers an emotionally attuned and impactful statement. The drummer’s other composition is the title track, “Smoke Shifter”, whose affable character and odd meter draw the horn players together with shared commitment and joy, revealing a keen instinct for counterpoint and collective interplay during the theme exposition.
The album closes with two demanding pieces by Vieira-Branco. Moving at a slow 4/4 pace, “October 26th” is grounded by the composer’s hypnotic vibraphone work in perfect communion with bass and drums. Casting a magnetic spell akin to Bobby Hutcherson and Andrew Hill, they later have sax and trumpet reinforcing the enchantment. “Paradise Lawn/October 29th” shifts meters, beginning in a suspended, abstract mode before Taylor’s magnificent drumming bridges into the waltzing smoothness of the second section, which includes a finely shaped solo by its composer.
Smoke Shifter is packed with surprise, openness, and spirit—a cliché-free session that thrives on first-rate, forward-looking melodies hovering over admirable rhythmic tapestries.
Favorite Tracks:
01 - Broken Horse ► 03 - Waltz For Meghan ► 04 - Smoke Shifter ► 06 - Paradise Lawns / October 29th