Bassist Mark Dresser has always been a restless spirit. Whether it’s stretching the boundaries of his instrument or using telematics as a means of long-distance collaboration, he’s always looking for new ways to make a statement. Here, with his six stellar bandmates, that statement is decidedly political, but there’s plenty of exuberance and heartfelt emotion
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It’s not just the clever titles that reflect this age of constant anxiety; Dresser’s off-center rhythms and wobbly harmonies also suggest a sense of instability. “Let Them Eat Paper Towels,” a reference to President Trump’s behavior in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, opens with Dresser delivering rumbling bass lines suggestive of a gathering storm. The focal point of the rollicking title track is a dissonant two-note vamp that evokes the same sense of dread and paranoia that Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society explored on 2016’s Real Enemies.
The front line — Nicole Mitchell on flutes and piccolo, multi-reedist Marty Ehrlich and trombonist Michael Dessen — brings vibrancy and clarity to Dresser’s off-center compositions, as do violinist Keir GoGwilt, pianist Joshua White and drummer Jim Black. Dresser’s compositions tend toward the abstract, but it’s backed by plenty of hard-driving swing and melodic development. The infectious groove of “Black Arthur’s Bounce” acts as ballast against the tune’s dissonant harmonies. The shimmering chamber piece “Gloaming” is as beautiful a piece of music as you’re likely to hear all year. Building off of Dresser’s elegiac opening statement, GoGwilt and Mitchell’s interlacing phrases emanate a brightness that suggests a flight to the heavens. And it’s not all political commentary. Tributes to a pair of Dresser’s recently departed friends — saxophonist Arthur Blythe (“Black Arthur’s Bounce”) and pianist Butch Lacy (the gorgeously somber “Butch’s Balm”) — bookend the album.
We may be stuck, as Dresser puts it in the liner notes, in a “national reality-horror-show of corruption, malice, xenophobia, and class warfare,” but at least he’s given us a worthy soundtrack for the occasion.—John Frederick Moore https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiMusGNK9CU