Label: Alternate Side Records, 2022
Personnel - Marshall Gilkes: trombone, composition; Aaron Parks: piano; Linda May Han Oh: bass; Jonathan Blake: drums + brass octet with Tony Kadleck: trumpet, flugelhorn; Brandon Ridenour: trumpet, piccolo trumpet, flugelhorn; Ethan Bensdorf: trumpet, flugelhorn; Adam Unsworth: horn; Joseph Alessi: trombone; Demondrae Thurman: euphonium, Nick Schwartz: bass trombone; Marcus Rojas: tuba.
On his nine-part suite Cyclic Journey, trombonist, composer and bandleader Marshall Gilkes couples jazz and classical material with wisdom. For that, he enlisted a contemporary jazz quartet of modern improvisers and a classical brass octet, which includes some known artists in the world of jazz such as trumpeter Tony Kadleck (Maria Schneider, John Hollenbeck) and tubist Marcus Rojas (Henry Threadgill). Gilkes' work with large ensembles - The Vanguard Orchestra, Maria Schneider, Ryan Truesdell’s Gil Evans Project, WDR Big Band - is widely recognized, and here he filters it through a personal prism in response to the internal and external existence of his own journey.
Letting the luminous rays of “First Light” spread widely, Gilkes orchestrates a waltzing chorale with well-designed horn layers and balanced statements from himself and pianist Aaron Parks. “Up and Down” keeps the relaxed posture, infusing nice counterpoint in the transition to “The Calm”, which, in turn, offers a charming moment of repose effectively brushed by drummer Jonathan Blake and featuring a wonderfully expressed bass solo by Linda May Han Oh. She delivers again on “Musings”, a lit up ride that also calls for trombone lyricism.
“Go Get It” flourishes with playful fanfare fantasy, weaving and intersecting sounds as if in a luxurious ballroom. In contrast, “Genre Battles” alternates those classical-like moments with the swinging eloquence of the jazz quartet.
With sequences of dovetailed brass populating “Cyclic Journey” at an early stage, it’s Parks who, standing out, showcases his prime form by supplying immense passion within an affirmative proposal. Curiously, one of the most gratifying pieces for me was the bonus track, “Sin Filtro”, which encapsulates rhythmic variety for a hybrid sonic identity that goes from Spanish to Latin to jazz.
This is an album that doesn’t necessarily scream for your attention but where one finds myriad nuances and compelling interplay throughout coherent frameworks.
Favorite Tracks:
01 - First Light ► 03 - The Calm ► 10 - Sin Filtro