Tchicai/Fewell/Tracanna/Dalla Porta/Manzi: Big Chief Dreaming

In an interesting note in the liner booklet for Big Chief Dreaming, guitarist Garrison Fewell says that the band dwelt on the role that inspiration and exploration played in shaping artistic vision. That question is answered in the path they took, or to put it more accurately, the paths. Explorations of the written note and improvisations are shaped in duo and trio outings. The main point underscored by the music, however, is that both situations evolve into pithy artistic statements.

Inspiration is forged on the empathy of the musicians, and all five pick up that invisible emotional thread and weave it into appealing patterns. They do so with a quiet demeanour, a tonal delectability that gently inveigles the senses. They shape that sphere right from the opener, an improvisatory tale called "Instant Intuition," with Fewell on guitar and Tino Tracanna on the soprano sax conversing in pellucid tones. Different tangents gel into a whole on the title tune, a trio outing with Tchicai, Fewell, and Massimo Manzi. Tchicai opens the path, Fewell follows in close cleave, while Manzi fills the pulse with his accents. And in that interplay, which evolves from the chase and pause, comes the character of the improvisation.

An incipient allure resides in the soul of "Simplicity." The melody is defined by the saxophonists, whose shifting accents then cut deep grooves or flit on breathy tones—Dalla Porta takes the motif into a softly changing prism, and Fewell illumines with his floating lines. The quintet comes out swinging on "Yogi in Disguise," but that is soon tempered as Fewell takes his guitar into a pastoral plain that get backs into the swing of things as Tchicai and Tracanna return.