In Philadelphia in the late 1970s, a two-year-old Johnathan Blake used to be wheeled to his jazz violinist father John Blake’s gigs with saxophonist Grover Washington – where he would sit entranced by the sight, sound and rhythms of the band’s powerful Philly drummer Pete Vinson. Those memories would help to turn Blake into one of the most creatively supportive drummers of recent times, whose perceptive power has been embraced by heavyweights from the Mingus Big Band, Q-Tip and Dr Lonnie Smith, to post-bop innovators Tom Harrell and Maria Schneider.
Homeward Bound is Blake’s exhilarating debut for the Blue Note label. Pentad, his new quintet, is a contemporary dream-band lineup with longtime bass partner Dezron Douglas, and three acclaimed young virtuosi in alto saxist and fellow-Philadelphian Immanuel Wilkins, vibraphonist Joel Ross, and the Cuba-born global jazz keyboardist David Virelles.
Blake’s ability to float elusively around a groove while implying an emphatic snap that’s felt rather than heard is the constant undertow to this intricate but always open music. The title track emerges from a long-toned sax-led sway to become an enthralling jam, with Wilkins and Ross swapping warmly intricate lines, and Virelles breaking out into typically clipped, concise figures and glistening double-time streams. The soul-jazzy Shakin’ the Biscuits sets the saxophonist blurting exclamatory sounds against a synth-playing Virelles’ shimmery chords, the beautiful South African lullaby Abiyoyo dreamily unfolds over Blake’s lazily handclap-like pulse, and LLL is a contrastingly breakneck postbop sprint. The standout is the quintet’s scorching account of the Joe Jackson night-on-the-town classic Steppin’ Out – double-takingly turning from a respectful nod to an earworm pop hit into an anthemically roaring Coltranesque sermon.
Also out this month
The great South African composer/pianist Abdullah Ibrahim’s unaccompanied 86th birthday recording Solotude (Gearbox Records) is quiet, pensive – tentative at times – and many pieces have a haiku-like brevity, but new tunes In-Tempo and Once Upon a Midnight stir Ibrahim into more wayward ruminations, and old classics such as District 6 and The Wedding retain their steely lyricism. UK trumpeter and Tomorrow’s Warriors stalwart Mark Kavuma and his band the Banger Factory (with tuba phenomenon Theon Cross) grippingly bridge 1950s Clifford Brown hard bop, New Orleans street music, Duke Ellington and more on Arashi No Ato (Banger Factory Records), and unique guitar innovator Fred Frith confirms none of his command of adventurous atmospherics have dimmed on Road (Intakt), a live trio gig imaginatively augmented by improv-articulate guests Lotte Anker (saxes) and Susana Santos Silva (trumpet).
