Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Kevin Brunkhorst: After the Fire

12

Kevin Brunkhorst: After the Fire

By

View read count
Kevin Brunkhorst: After the Fire
Guitarist Kevin Brunkhorst, an alumnus of the University of North Texas and its celebrated One O'Clock Lab Band, has been teaching jazz in Canada for more than two decades, and his able sidemen on After the Fire are from the Nova Scotia area, where the album was recorded in October 2023.

Brunkhorst moves seamlessly from acoustic to electric guitar while doubling as composer and arranger in a session that consists of seven of his original works. He shares the front line with trumpeter Paul Tynan and tenor saxophonist Kenji Omae, amplifying a rhythm section comprised of bassist Tom Easley and drummer Tom Roach.

The emphasis throughout is on leisurely to mid-tempo sketches wherein Brunkhorst, Tynan and Omae are free to improvise broadly, sharing for the most part concepts that are respectable albeit less than unique. In other words, well-spoken but otherwise unremarkable. The same can be said of Brunkhorst's well-written themes (one would expect no less from a musician with his experience) but they fail to elicit the sort of enthusiastic response that would separate them from the herd.

The overall impression is one of measured uniformity, a pleasant yet largely pedestrian nexus that would be extremely well-served by a blunt change of pace or two. Brunkhorst has the right idea, as far as it goes. The problem is, it does not go quite far enough, at least not on After the Fire, a lukewarm vessel in search of a fiery source to set it ablaze.

Track Listing

As Fate Would Have It; One Spring; As You Know; Daydream Manual; The Roaring Twenties; After the Fire; The Passing Months.

Personnel

Paul Tynan
trumpet
Kenji Omae
saxophone, tenor
Tom Roach
drums

Album information

Title: After the Fire | Year Released: 2025 | Record Label: Calligram Records

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.