Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Matt Ulery: Mannerist

4

Matt Ulery: Mannerist

By

View read count
Matt Ulery: Mannerist
There is a lilting magic to the music of Mannerist that is hard to deny or find fault with. The "Bridge" starts and the whole day changes, eliciting, perhaps, a feeling of being lighter on the feet, lighter in spirit and, most importantly, lighter in the head. Suddenly all the information they want you to swallow goes away and its just you and the music. It is a beautiful thing. It is something bassist/composer/bandleader Matt Ulery sets out to do every time he takes to the bandstand or his writing chambers. So standing kudos to him for following his instinct and muse.

With the hail of chaos with which we brood daily, there becomes an almost dire need for the music on Mannerist. Calm with a soulful undertow, it is a respite from the hard rain. It is music borne on the spring breeze and sunset. A music that need not beg you to listen.

Mannerist has the ability to float into your life, as "Bridges" floats into "The Brink of What" that, even with its slightly darker moments (thanks to pianist Paul Bedal, drifts into the quixotically effervescent "Another Book of Ornaments," a tour-de-force crash course on everything Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus. The three tracks virtually gambol, and when was the last time you gamboled along with anything?

As a composer, Ulery has a romantic streak running through him. A downtown dancehall, big band flair for finery that becomes instantly evident be he conducting an eleven-piece band (as he does here) or smaller ensembles. After the sweeping adventures heard on "Another Book of Ornaments," the dance moves to the "Left Window" and, if you've never encountered Ulery and his sweet designs on records such as Become Giant (Woolgathering, 2022), Pollinator (Woolgathering, 2020) or Wonderment (Woolgathering, 2019), it begins to make you wonder how long he can keep his graceful illusions going.

And though Ulery may appear to some as a magician, Mannerist is no illusion. "Under the Dusken Crown" and "The Prairie is a Rolling Ocean" are no dreams of fiction. They are, as is the whole, the most recent summation of what Ulery does: brings you somewhere else you thought was lost but now is found.

Track Listing

Bridges; The Brink of What; Another Room of Ornaments; Left Room; Under the Dusken Crown; The Prairie is a Rolling Ocean.

Personnel

Album information

Title: Mannerist | Year Released: 2023 | Record Label: Woolgathering Records

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.