Andrew Drury: Content Provider

New York-based jazz and avant-garde drummer, Andrew Drury largely performs with the crème de la crème of likeminded artistes, and has assembled one heck of a band for his latest solo venture. Drury is firmly embedded in the global improvising scene and has performed with a who's who of current jazz and improv pioneers. In-between duties as an A-list drummer in the US and abroad, he puts his composer hat on, and is someone you can often count on to deal the knockout blow.

Drury leads this all-star quartet into a rhythmical wonderland. With pummeling, loose and thorny metrics, along with nascent experimental guitar hero Brandon Seabrook's serrated and titanium lined jazz rock configurations, the quartet cohesively and furiously goes for the gusto with stratospheric exchanges and frenetic breakouts. The band enjoys mixing it up, whether Drury is pounding out huge backbeats or when saxophonists Briggan Krauss and Ingrid Laubrock either mimic or taunt each other with forceful solo jaunts.

The band expands, contracts and vigorously works though Drury's structured comps with rough and tumble and peppy, in-your-face mini-motifs. The lack of a bassist is compensated by the drummer's booming bass drum patterns and polyrhythmic timekeeping. Drury is also a protagonist even during playful escapades between the saxophonists on "Content Provider," as the musicians' swirling choruses are augmented by witty phrasings and mutable dialogues. These pieces also include a smattering of off-kilter unison choruses and tricky time signatures. The frontline also incorporates Middle Eastern riffs and Albert Ayler-like, free form chants while seemingly communicating with the musical spirits beyond.

"The Commune of Brooklyn" is underscored by bouncing and popping sax phrasings and thrusting opuses within an odd-metered rhythmic gait and trumpeter Clifford Brown's "Daahoud," may be the most straight-ahead track on the album, where the saxophonists' drawling, soul-blues notes take on the characteristics of a vocalist belting out the lyrics. Once again, Drury pushes the envelope, yielding a widespread and bountiful array of intriguing and hugely entertaining propositions.