Vadims Dmitrijevs Quintet: Integration!

If discovery is an element, and most certainly it is if one is an adventurous listener, uncovering new talent motivates your listening habits. With a release like Integration!, the exploration is nearly effortless. For those not yet familiar with the label Jersika Records, the album is a Latvian production under the careful guidance of its chief Mareks Ameriks. For the technical nerds out there, Integration! was captured on analog reel-to-reel tape using a Studer B 67 ¼" two-track tape recorder without editing or overdubbing. The vinyl was cut directly from the original masters on a Neumann VMS70 cutting lathe using a Neumann SX74 cutting head. Translated for the rest of us, the vinyl LP has extraordinarily good sound.

The discovery of great sound is magnified here by the excellent performances of Latvian composer and trombonist Vadims Dmitrijevs' quintet. Dmitrijevs studied for his masters and formed this group in Hamburg, Germany, with Kamil Husyainov (tenor saxophone), Sophia Oster (piano), Timon Kraemer (bass) and Bastian Menz drums. The group traveled to Riga, Latvia in December 2022 to record this album in front of a live audience.

The title track opens the performance with an elegant swing that weaves around each instrument to create a soulful blues with solos by Dmitrijevs and Husyainov. There is an air of mid-1960s Blue Note about this recording, exemplified best by "Tea For Timos" which could easily be mistaken for a Joe Henderson composition. Brief and inspired solos are heard by Kraemer and Husyainov before Dmitrijevs lays down his 'bone' argument. There is an undeniable cohesiveness to the quintet, which makes for seamless transitions between hard bop and a ballad like Timon Kraemer's "The Heat." Their rendition is fueled by Oster's piano in tandem with Dmitrijevs' graceful trombone delivery. Oster opens "Looking Back," a slick hard bop composition with its tempo changes, sounding like a combination of McCoy Tyner and Herbie Hancock. Crowd-pleasing solos are exchanged leading into the finale, Buggy Braune's "How Little I Knew," a sentimental gambol to cool off the audience and bid all a good night.