L.A. Jenkins / Hasan Abdur-Razzaq / Adam Smith: Intrusion

This outwardly simple and uncomplicated trio recording by L.A. Jenkins matches three improvisers with almost identical musical visions. The guitarist collaborates with saxophonist Hasan Abdur-Razzaq and drummer Adam Smith. Both partners are versed in the exploratory music of Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, and Pharoah Sanders. And both are members of The Wizards, a quartet that mines the cosmic and free jazz landscapes of the 1960s and 70s.

Jenkins, a student of Ornette Coleman's harmolodics, has developed a sound that is part Bern Nix and part Bill Frisell, but is also crafted and original. His explorations begin with freely improvised sound that coagulates into imperturbable sonic structures that are informed by patient and stoical music leanings. His previous release was Clarity of the Peculiar (Edgetone, 2012).

Intrusion carefully wraps its free jazz in a blanket of gentle sound. Jenkins prefers to mask his improvisations with a cover of ambient sound. Explosions are eschewed as the trio blows waves of saxophone & bass clarinet over cymbals. Jenkins' sound is delivered much like Bill Frisell's guitar when he was the choice of drummer Paul Motian in the 1980s. Each piece here tip-toes into consciousness. Even the extroverted Ayler-sound of Abdur- Razzaq's saxophone on "Second Light" toes the line of this session. Things never get noisy, even when the music opens up on "Cohesion @ The Parallel Universe" and "Final Flight." The latter piece finds Abdur-Razzaq taking up the cello to balance Jenkins' probing gestures and Smith's rumbling guidance. The music here is the equivalent of a polished gem with multi- facets. Quite the discovery.