Matty Harris: Double Septet

Multi-reedman Matty Harris' double septet is a large ensemble endeavor, featuring many Los Angeles artists, including venerable woodwind ace Vinny Golia for a program brimming with numerous horns-based convergences, soulful proclamations, subtle melodic inventions and pieces often designed with embryonic buildups and burgeoning choruses. Other movements enact notions of a calm-before-the-storm stylization amid interweaving passages and accents. Harris and associates primarily reside on the outside realm of jazz, but it is not chaotic by any stretch. The band toggles between loose groove type improvisational tactics and brash proclamations with well-organized thematic opuses.

The fourth and final track "Oh, a Little Day Trip Around the Crunch," starts with contrasting horns statements that occasionally overlap, and they restructure the main storyline with alternating cadenzas and wide leaps. Moreover, the rhythm section announces its presence as the band works through capacious interludes and linear movements. During the bridge, the soloists mix it up with free-form patterns and whirling breakouts. Besides the cerebral implications the artists are obviously enjoying the session. At one point, they completely dismantle the piece, as though they tossed a completed jigsaw puzzle on the floor with the intentions of starting from scratch. Towards closeout they gradually stitch the primary motif back together. Indeed, it's an engaging set that unveils other niceties on subsequent listens.

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