David Bixler: Inside the Grief

Following his 2019 nonet offering, Blended Lineage (Red Piano), alto-saxophonist David Bixler, no stranger to the stress and strains of our collectively jagged, irregular days, sets out heroically to make sense of it all on Inside the Grief. And make sense of it all he does with six probing, conversational originals that manage to restore some balance of life and light into many of today's darkest recesses. Stripping it all down to a trio format, Bixler, bassist Gregg August and drummer Fabio Rojas revel in truthful, open dialogue broaching contrasting themes and motifs with a one, unified goal: If not necessarily resolution, at least some soul connection.

The three keep the performance lean, knowing well beyond metaphor that the lighter one travels the more ground one covers. Bixler's characteristically shiny, metallic tone and searching logic, wavers, leads, dances and dives with taut, scrappy lucidity. So he opens the conversation with the wiry, two-part blues movement "What Does It Care/I Spy." It snaps and switches back. It urges itself forward. Like most people emerging from isolation, "Like Shosti" begins life slowly. August and Fabio moving pensively until a shadow tango takes form under Bixler's five note mantra and minor variations. Like three guys shaking off the dust of these odd days, the looser mid-tempo interplay of "389" makes for a sweet moment.

Take all of the preceding paragraph and mix it into the title track and that makes the final two tracks of Inside the Grief, the gesturing shadows of "Balm" and the aggressive, pent up release closer "Vote!" like bonus tracks to a real good thing.