Geof Bradfield: Colossal Abundance

In the summer of 2023, saxophonist Geof Bradfield and trumpeter Chad McCullough launched Calligram Records—a label focusing on the Chicago creative music scene and its branches. The first batch of albums was strong, with showcases for each of the label heads' respective combo projects, trumpeter Russ Johnson's chordless quartet, and newcomer tenorist Arman Sangalang. A wide variety of offerings followed—the global stew of Atlantic Road Trip's first flight, a kicking trio date from guitarist Scott Hesse, a broad-minded gathering with trumpeter Rob Parton's Ensemble 9+, etc.—and as of Calligram's one-year anniversary, its catalog boasts a dozen dynamic releases. Now, as year two takes off, the future looks even brighter with the arrival of Bradfield's Colossal Abundance.

The power of 12 surrounds and resounds in this large-scale project. Bradfield uses this well-timed opportunity to harness and refract the inherent wonders tied to the magic number—12 pulses of African rhythmic cycles, 12 pitches in Western chromaticism, the combinatorial powers of 12 musicians in this band—and the results are, frankly, astounding. Using the Quaver (Calligram, 2023) band as a core—his quintet featuring Johnson, Hesse, bassist Clark Sommers and drummer Dana Hall—Bradfield builds by adding like-minded label mates, friends and familiars. On the horn side of the equation he brings in saxophonist/flutist Anna Webber, multi-clarinet maverick Ben Goldberg, trumpeter Derrick Gardner, trombonist Norman Palm and French hornist Momo Hasselbring Seko; and on the rhythm front, he puts percussionist Gregory Beyer in play. The music these artists create together is as exciting as it is unpredictable.

That personnel lineup speaks to outsized sounds, but Bradfield surprises by starting in the other direction—with intimacy—on traditional Shona song "Mahororo." A percussion duet for the leader's mbira and Beyer's berimbau, it nods to the Mother Continent's language, Bradfield's fascination with the finger piano and his studies on it at home and abroad in Zimbabwe. That particular soundprint helps set the scene for a swirling, hypnotically fragmented take on John Coltrane's "Lonnie's Lament" that comes second and serves as a proper introduction to this rangy ensemble. Further demonstrating his band's capabilities, Bradfield offers two distinctly different portraits of Charlie Parker's mother—his own loose-yet-grooving "Adelaide Bailey," arriving next in the running order and carving out space for Goldberg's gleeful contra-alto clarinet and Johnson's temperature-controlling trumpet, and Jaki Byard's "Mrs. Parker of K.C.," appearing later in a reshaped form as a ride across the Danakil Desert.

"Tuku," honoring Zimbabwean musical icon Oliver Mtukudzi and drawing on influences like Abdullah Ibrahim and Randy Weston, gives Gardner and Ward room to shine, opens space for Hall to have at it, and turns for Bradfield's tenor to have the final say in a half-time hideaway. "Kaleidoscope" is pure trance dance, with Bradfield's bass clarinet and Webber's flute each drawing ears out front before the band takes to power play. "Requiem," with Beyer's marimba and Sommers' emotionalized statements serving as a prelude to reflection on life lost in the Middle East, shows the poignant powers of Goldberg's Bb clarinet work.

Wayne Shorter's "United" provides a shift in both sound and mood, with a mixture of big band sonics and small group interplay, comparatively down-the-middle soloing—from Gardner, Bradfield and a delightfully aggressive Hall—and the forwarding of hopeful ideals. Then two sides of the blues bring the album to its end—the spellbinding and haunting "Gandanga Blues," moving with an air of mysticism and mournfulness, and a hip-as-hell, reggae-fied take on Henry Threadgill's "Bermuda Blues," with some primo Palm soloing.

It's incredibly rare for an album to hold attention from beginning to end and almost unheard of for one to work so easily and seamlessly from so many points of arrival and departure. But Colossal Abundance comes with those gifts. It's the ne plus ultra of creative cohesion and easily one of the finest records of the year.