Dark Journey: The Music of Andrew Rathbun

If jazz is "the sound of surprise," then the septet (sometimes octet with guest percussion on some tracks) Western Jazz collective definitely delivers. Dark Journey (The Music of Andrew Rathbun) features multireed player Rathbun's kaleidoscopic compositions, works far from the conventional 32-bar or 12-bar tunes that dominate the jazz canon. his pieces unspool like skeins of multi-colored and textured threads that weave complex forms. Many of the nine tracks here employ shifting time signatures, often including odd meters as well as changing tempi, from swift down to rubato, sometimes all on the same tune. "Making No Sense", the opening and longest track is representative of most of those attributes. The rhythm section, with Matt Landon (guitar), opens in a rollicking 3/4-6/8 time, then gives way to a Scott cowan (trumpet) solo at a crawling tempo, gradually joined and backed by comments from Landon and Matthew Fries (electric piano), as the tempo dissolves into semi-rubato ensemble choruses, horns and guitar joined by the sonorities of Greg Jasperse's wordless (mostly vowel-based) vocals. Then a 6/8 jangly rhythm introduces solo trades by the composer's soprano saxophone and Landon's guitar; the track then concludes in a slow reverie of electric piano, guitar and voice. Rathbun's arrangements conjure a surprising variety of timbral and tonal colors from just a septet/ octet. "Longer Wait" evokes a Twilight Zone vibe with soft keyboard chords and his slithery WX7 electronic saxophone, paired with cowan's classically pure-toned open trumpet. "Different Directions" unfurls true to its title, as shifting times (6, 4, 5) are more than matched by disparate lines from voice, horns and guitar and piano. a highlight is the second-longest track, "February First", with John Hébert's pizzicato bass solo opening over a trotting tempo, and other musicians dropping contrasting lines until pianist Fries asserts a theme ushering in guitar and tenor saxophone solos (Rathbun in Sonny Rollins mode), all culminating in an electronically altered, Eddie Harris-like saxophone mouthpiece on trumpet solo coda. The sum total results in a constantly surprising and stimulating program exploring the outer range of jazz' compositional strategies.