Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (Exit) Knarr: Breezy

When news of Jaimie Branch's passing broke in 2022, there was an understandably huge outpouring of tributes from different corners of the jazz community. While an eternal punk rocker at heart, Branch was also a distinctly millennial musician, and a fitting figurehead for the recent wave of borderless improvised music that came out of Chicago's International Anthem label that she called home. For all the deliberately ragged edges, Branch's vision was clear, her delivery fierce, and her inclusive message inarguable.

(Read our late colleague Chris May's typically authoritative guide here.)

There have been numerous live tributes to Branch over the past 18 months, but Breezy, by Texas-based Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, is the first full album in her honor. It is a tribute in name—"Breezy" being Branch's nickname—and spirit, but not music, compromising fresh compositions by the Norwegian bassist/composer who shared dates with Branch and calls the late trumpeter a "dear friend." (Other touted credits include Jeff Parker, Peter Brötzmann and Joe McPhee).

Lively and loose, chaotic but controlled, the music is brought to life by the same group behind his 2021 release (Exit) Knarr (Sonic Transmissions)—for which the group is now named—a sympathetic and spiritually inclined sextet fronted by three crisscrossing horns that lend the music much of its raucous carnival feel, forever teetering between formal statements and a breakdown of order. On the joyous opener, "Dylar" a lazy off-kilter jug band blues melody waves lazily over a frenetic repeating riff, held steadily by bass and guitar in unison. Then affirmation arrives in the form of a glorious breakdown, a bold, huggable melody streaming through the stained-glass windows with an inclusivity that would make Pharoah Sanders proud. "Free the Jazz" marks a more conventional free-leaning post-bop workout, the horns merrily freaking out while the bassist once more obediently holds down a groove, matched in step by a roving guitar countermelody.

SIde two begins with a moment of calm in "Hilma," where the darting horn lines crisscross like birds in the dusk sky, over guest guitarist Oddrun Lilja Jonsdottir's sound- scapey intro. Slowly momentum builds and swells, but the dreamy mood of contemplation is never broken, no single horn line ever taking the lead. Instead someone invited Frank Zappa to the party, with a twisted melody breaking the calm to usher in an extraterrestrial guitar solo. Jonathan F. Horne's six-string sonic assault continues on "Ability," the slightest composition here, a high-tempo rocker, punctuated with a jagged pentatonic riff, which dissolves into more Milesian soundscaping. The hymnal closing tribute "Breezy" is the strongest part of the set, a moment of solemn remembrance, its swaying horn lines perhaps meant to call to mind a procession. We were never going to get away so sweetly—inevitably there is one last climatic exorcism, fraying guitars and horns battling it out, sounding a war cry with Branchian abandon, until the groove falls away altogether, and the record fades out to feedback, and black.

At eight-plus minutes, it's also the longest, most languid moment in a tight 33-minute set, which feels longer and denser. (Exit) Knarr has proved itself a versatile and resourceful unit, steeped in the European improv tradition, but imbibed with a swagger and nuance, astride a deep musical chemistry. Let us hope Flaten's next release continues to further develop this bond.

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