Label: Intakt Records, 2023
Personnel - Asger Nissen: alto saxophone; Julius Gawlik: tenor saxophone; Felix Henkelhausen: acoustic bass; Jim Black: drums.
Jim Black, an insightful drummer and composer with a propensity for knotty rock textures, joins forces with three European musicians with ages under 30: Danish alto saxophonist Asger Nilssen, German tenor player Julius Gawlik and German bassist Felix Henkelhausen. An indomitable energy prevails throughout the 12 tracks on Ain’t No Saint.
The chord-less session starts powerfully with “The Set-Up”, a tribute to 76-year-old trumpeter Baikida Carroll with whom Black played on Tim Berne’s octet album Insomnia (Clean Feed, 2011). The ensemble rides raw surfaces, externalizing gestures with a gripping immediacy. Henkelhausen defines the harmony with permanent commitment, and his work is also relevant on two natural-sounding pieces that follow a more standard song format: “No Pull”, which slows things down through a leisurely 4/4 pop/rock stream; and “The Once”, which he introduces with empathetic involvement, later having long saxophone notes giving it harmonic context. Following his improvisation, the intensity of the latter piece is impetuously elevated into a pragmatic if athletic rock circularity.
“Snags” reveals swinging urgency with the saxophonists in synchronous activity during the main theme, and then becoming very communicative in their interspersed statements. Equally exposing a good swinging time, “Surely” is bounded by an incredible rhythmic stimulation, with Nilssen and Gawlik gearing up a pump of adrenaline before making their phrases converge in the last minutes.
There’s tremendous passion behind every drum stroke, and Black excels particularly on “Asgingforit”, a more overtly progressive cut imbued with a hymn-like solemnity, as well as “Bellsimmer”, where he contributes to the fray by tapering off into world-inspired rhythms and prog-rock terrain. The ritual insurgence embraced by the horn players here differ from the elated melody delivered in parallel on “Crashback”. The bandleader digs in on the occasion with an inexorable rhythmic drive, turning the piece into an entrancing groover.
Black’s implacable body of work will reward followers of muscular avant-garde jazz and resilient rock hybridity.
Favorite Tracks:
01 - The Set-Up ► 03 - Asgingforit ► 06 - Bellsimmer