Luis Vicente: Come Down Here

Portuguese trumpeter Luis Vicente hits pay dirt with Come Down Here. Although he explores a range of styles from poised but unfettered outings such as Chamber 4 (FMR, 2015) and For Sale (Clean Feed, 2015), to fire music collaborations with the likes of tenor saxophonist John Dikeman on House In The Valley (Clean Feed, 2023), the free bop here perhaps plays to his strengths best of all. Simple themes offer abundant inspiration, allowing him free rein for a melodicism that has always been part of his persona amid his customarily wide-ranging timbral expressiveness.

While the trumpeter undoubtedly serves as the focal point, the success of the date owes much to the rhythm team of bassist Gonçalo Almeida and drummer Pedro Melo Alves, who unstintingly furnish flexible support to the leader, whether by creating elastic out-of-kilter grooves that largely avoid strict meter or by bringing improv smarts to adventurous tonal dialogue. On the opening title track, the combo's exuberant fanfares sound a dead ringer for the late American trumpeter Roy Campbell's Pyramid Trio. Praise indeed when you consider that it was the great William Parker and Hamid Drake axis fueling that outfit.

Among the other high points is the verging on dirge-like "Hope II," which features some lovely interweaving between trumpet and bowed bass. However, perhaps the peak is the traditional Brazilian tune "Mandei Caiar O Meu Sobrado," where Almeida's pizzicato twang evokes the berimbau, a musical bow of African origin, accompanied by rustling percussion and an exotic wood flute. After that atmospheric lead in, the meat and gravy arrives in the mournful gospel-tinged line, relayed with gusto by Vicente over a supple mesmerizing beat. The final "Penumbra" follows a similar trajectory with similarly pleasing results, and in so doing affirms once more the crew's ability to find its way offline, before culminating in another plaintive, weary but defiant theme.

By acing the basics, Vicente has fashioned an album startling in its immediacy, yet amply capable of reward over the long term.