Label: Trost Records, 2021
Personnel - Rodrigo Amado: tenor saxophone; Joe McPhee: pocket trumpet, soprano saxophone; Kent Kessler: bass; Chris Corsano: drums.
The Portuguese free-jazz saxophonist Rodrigo Amado reunites his flagship project - This Is Our Language quartet - for their third outing, the second on the Austrian label Trost Records. Comprising four spontaneous improvisations, Let The Free Be Men is not as powerful as its predecessors, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t moments of pure passion or sonic rollercoasters with plenty of hooks and fast turns for us to ride.
All members give their instruments a workout, with the saxophonist/trumpeter Joe McPhee serving as a perfect foil for Amado’s attacks in the first line, while bassist Kent Kessler and drummer Chris Corsano generate concrete tapestries that feel heavy and uncompromising.
“Resist!” starts off with a drum monologue, equal measures inquisitive and driving, which is subsequently softened up by the arrival of bowed bass. Yet, it’s in this section that Corsano better shows his agility over the snare and toms, and a rare intuition of when making the cymbals crash for a great effect. Tenor and trumpet dive in simultaneously. Amado with a forceful discourse packed with rhythmic figures and punctuation marks and McPhee with deliberate and thoughtful melodic lines. From here on, the energy never stops to propagate at a vertiginous speed, and McPhee, switching the trumpet for the soprano, adds extra color to the party.
The title cut blooms with a multiphonic coalition between the two horn players, who create an abstract atmosphere with the help of a somber arco bass and controlled fluxes of brushed drums. A lament takes shape, bearing a resemblance to choral music, but the group blazes another trail at the midway point, indulging in a folk-inspired groove that inflames the saxophonists’ improvisatory stimuli. This is the most provocative track on the album.
“Men is Women is Men” incorporates humming, warbling and murmuring sounds that lead to a cacophonous parade, whereas “Never Surrender” takes the plunge in a suspended, Ornette Coleman-esque state but ends in a more-scrappy-than-polished mishmash of horns, bass and drums.
The closed circle of sounds repeat and revamp with perpetual tension and they would probably benefit from a bit more of melodic thread and groove. It’s up to the group to decide that, but free jazzers can go for it as it is.
Grade B
Favorite Tracks:
01 - Resist! ► 02 - Let The Free Be Men