Category: Reviews

Having made his bones with his John Abercrombie duet, the bass ace pioneers a new jazz genre, free jazz for white people. Not as madly careening as classic civil rights jazz, Brendler’s vision has it own moves and makes it own rules madly teasing the ears of honkies not all that in love with straight lines. Well conceived wild stuff for those looking for a wild ride.

CHRIS SPECTOR – MIDWEST RECORD

On his excellent debut outing for Positone, bassist Peter Brendler got arguably upstaged by the intrigue inherent to the frontline pairing of tenorist Rich Perry and trumpeter Peter Evans. With Message in Motion much of the novelty has worn off, replaced by a full embrace of the confidence that comes from two players who share an encyclopedic command of their respective instruments. Vinnie Sperrazza returns on drums and Brendler also taps guitarist Ben Monder to bolster the band to quintet size. Brendler leads with his usual blend of instrumental prowess and careful consideration toward crafting collaborative surroundings that stress his colleagues’ strengths.

Eight originals add to a pair of covers for a solid near-hour of music starting with the hardbop-reminiscent “Splayed”, a medium-tempo head-solos piece that allows Evans to uncork his horn. Perry’s ensuing solo is more conventional by comparison, but stocked with register-ranging stream of phrases. Brendler holds the center with a plumply striding line. The ballad “Angelica” finds him in comparable functional form, plucking out an anchor around which the horns revolve before expanding into a resonant conversation with Sperrazza around a Latin rhythm. Monder debuts on the lushly configured “Stunts and Twists”, glassy amplification giving his tasteful chording added reflective presence.

The lengthiest cut of the date, Alice Coltrane’s “Ptah The El Daoud” gives Sperrazza a shot to shine on the martial motif that underscores the tune and Evans engages in an expressive Doppler growl. Perry’s rubato extemporization cuts to the core of the mood-saturated theme with Brendler once again laying down a bold bass pulse as the tenorist heats up and treads close to the rarefied territory of the composer’s spouse. Evans worries a phrase to the point of near-overkill before exploding it into a torrent of textured sound. Elliott Smith’s “Easy Way Out” places the spotlight sharply on the leader and Sperrazza with Monder joining them mid-piece and further solidifying the melodic focus with a lattice of reverb-dipped single notes and glissandi.

Brendler’s compositions carry the album to conclusion starting with aptly-named “Very Light and Very Sweet”, an up-tempo lark that augments its brisk, effervescent structure with some weighty improvisation from Evans and Perry followed by rollicking exchanges with Sperrazza. “Gimmie the Numbers” brings a Mingus-style groove predicated by its title and propelled by Brendler’s room-filling strolling line. Evans and Perry play the blues in their inimitable idiolects as Monder caulks the corners with luminous chords. “Lucky in Astoria” and “Stop Gap” arguably save the most unexpected Brendler for last with the first adopting rock inflections through Monder’s distortion-laced riffing and second capping the session with sortie through open-ended funk. Converting this eclectic crew to a working band seems a foregone conclusion.

Derek Taylor – Dusted Magazine

New York bassist Peter Brendler has been a rising figure in the city’s jazz mainstream for the past decade or so. He recently released Message in Motion (Posi-Tone), his second album as a leader (not counting a 2013 duo recording with guitarist John Abercrombie, The Angle Below). It’s another knockout, working solidly within postbop orthodoxy while pushing against its strictures, thanks largely to the strong players with whom the bassist surrounds himself— and none contribute more powerfully than trumpeter Peter Evans. In fact, it’s Evans who pretty much transforms the album from a strong postbop session into a recording that’s stunned me—when I listen to it, I alternate between laughing at the trumpeter’s nonchalant audacity and falling speechless at his ability to work inside the tradition, leaving it a sere husk in his wake.

Evans is an improviser of great technical facility and wild imagination, and during his long stint in the wonderfully arch Mostly Other People Do the Killing he showed off his postbop chops with a gleeful irreverence, alternately playing changes with fiery excitement and turning over the apple cart with full-blown experimentation. He left that band a couple of years ago, and for those hungering to hear him in a more conventional jazz setting, Brendler has been providing it.

As he did on his 2014 album Outside the Line, Brendler works with Evans, saxophonist Rich Perry, and drummer Vinnie Sperrazza on the new record; on a handful of tracks the group expands to a quintet with the addition of guitarist Ben Monder. In most cases the leader’s compositions are sturdy vehicles for blowing, as you can hear for yourself on album opener “Splayed,” where a delicate unison melody flips into a driving shuffle groove, allowing both horn men to chew up the scenery, both individually and in thrilling multilinear improvising.
“Angelica” is another brisk number, with an appealingly tart melody inspired by Duke Ellington’s small-group work; Brendler cites guitarist John Abercrombie as an inspiration for the ballad “Stunts and Twists,” which gets a lush atmosphere from Monder’s moody comping. On album closer “Stop Gap” Brendler pays homage to the denatured boogaloo themes popular on Blue Note during the late 50s and early 60s, a genre exercise not terribly far removed from what Evans did in MOPDTK (though Brendler’s harmonies and the horn timbre sound thoroughly contemporary).

Message in Motion includes two covers: the bassist gets the spotlight on the opening of a trio version of Elliott Smith’s “Easy Way Out,” where an extended, crystalline guitar solo temporarily but dramatically changes the complexion of the album toward cool, lyrical introspection. Sperrazza deploys a tough march rhythm to kick off the group’s take on Alice Coltrane’s “Ptah the El Daoud,” followed by a Perry solo that channels Coltrane’s husband John, but it’s Evans who steals the show, crowning Brendler’s walking groove with a dazzling adaptation of his own extended techniques—repeating fast-moving phrases till they turn dizzying, playing lines that run up and down the range of his horn with frightening precision and clarity, scalding his exquisite tone with striated dissonance, bringing a nasality that sounds downright saxophonic to other lines, and closing it out with a hilarious guttural blubber and a high-pitched whinny.

Peter Margasak – Chicago Reader

Jazz full frame. It is right on target with this strong team of aggressive and inventive musicians able to revive the colors of the modern swing. After Outside The Line (Posi-Tone, 2014), bassist Peter Brendler maintains the same quartet without harmonic instrument to propose a music with clear lines: two soloists and a rhythm section. Classic you might say, of course, but with a few blowers duo Peter Evans, stunning trumpet and Rich Perry on tenor saxophone we enjoy meeting here to recall happy memories of the discographic label Steeplechase and especially with the big- band of Thad Jones and Mel Lewis once. With the valuable and effective support of drummer Vinnie Sperrazza, Peter Brendler blackmails his bass (intro … Easy Way Out) on flexible lines of music that defends a certain idea of brevity and simplicity in both original themes in loans to Duke Ellington and John Coltrane (Angelica), Alice Coltrane (Ptah the El Daoud) or Elliott Smith (Easy Way Out). And then there is the presence in almost alien in this context invited the guitarist Ben Monder that has shaken the quartet scheduling and planning the color harmonies of his always creative guitar playing. Recorded in a day so almost in live conditions in the studio as is usual with Posi-Tone, this disc gives a clear and accurate picture of what may be the jazz today: rooted in tradition but played with the freshness of the discoverers of the first days thanks to the fertile imagination instrumentalists.

Thierry Giard – Culture Jazz France