Preserves by Street Tentacle

https://balancepointacoustics.bandcamp.com/album/preserves

Genre: Free Jazz

Rating: 🎷🎷🎷🎷🎷

Released on Bandcamp August 8, 2022

It’s been a minute since I’ve heard any new free jazz releases banging like this one. There’s the joke about jazz is anything with a saxophone. While that may not be true, it is true that saxophonist Jeff Chan is actually the only one on here actually playing jazz. Percussionist Jerome Bryerton might object to that statement but hear me out. Chan’s Wikipedia page mentions Ornette as a primary influence but the playing on these tracks remind me more of Roscoe Mitchell and occasionally Ayler. Guitarist Da Wei Wang, who’s primary claim to fame has been with the Chicago experimental music collective ONO, puts down a solid sonic texture of aggressive drones. If it wasn’t stir fried with Chan’s sax it you could call it industrial but in the mix the feeling of it transcends the labeling. Jerome Bryerton’s percussion also plays a huge role in making this music great. He really goes off. At some points it feels like he’s the prominent force in the direction of the music. If these tracks were boiled down to solo percussion it would still be a five star release.

Usually with jazz and even if not especially free jazz it’s the unity that powers the sound. I want to be very delicate how I say this because I’m not saying there’s a lack of unity but there’s a prominence of individuality that’s rare in jazz and it works incredibly well here.

Anyway, this is the running for my AOTY. I got a lot of stuff to go back and review but this is certainly an important highlight of the summer.