Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Matt Bauder And Day In Pictures: Nightshades

7

Matt Bauder And Day In Pictures: Nightshades

By

View read count
Matt Bauder And Day In Pictures: Nightshades
Saxophonist Matt Bauder was mentored by celebrated avant-garde jazz saxophonist and composer Anthony Braxton and has been a busy and quite productive artist on numerous jazz fronts. As a topnotch session man and leader, Bauder's resume intimates fruitful affiliations with musicians who are at the forefront of the progressive jazz and avant-garde sectors. Fueled by an all-star lineup, Nightshades is the saxophonist's second solo effort for Portugal-based Clean Feed Records, and is a program that shifts between mainstream jazz and ultramodern propositions.

Bauder kicks off the agenda with a Horace Silver style bump and grind oeuvre "Octavia Minor," where pianist Kris Davis complements the leader's gritty sax lines with cool accents and swirling chord clusters. However, compositional contrasts abound on other works as the band creates more than a few highly expressionistic firestorms, but alternates the avant-garde forays with pieces such as the old school conventional jazz type ballad, "Starr Wykoff." Here, warm, late-night soloing activities are integrated into a curvy song-form, featuring Bauder's contemplative lines and drummer Tomas Fujiwara's delicate brushes.

"Rule of Thumbs" is a topsy-turvy excursion, marked by free-flowing dialogues as the soloists embark on a search and conquer mission while piloting through a surfeit of nooks and crannies as Davis equalizes the pace via linear runs and off-kilter phrasings. Moreover, the band alternates the current with succinct choruses, but venture into a heightened red-zone attack amid trumpeter Nate Wooley's breathy intonation, scratchy notes and microtonal articulations. Otherwise "August and Counting," begins with a knock- down, drag-out groove, tempered by Bauder's tender interludes. And "Nightshades" closes out the album with a genial, New Orleans second- line boogaloo vamp.

Bauder's strategic output combines ferocious improvisational activities that rattle the senses with other compositions and movements that could soothe the savage beast. It's a hybrid gameplan that yields gratifying results.

Track Listing

Octavia Minor; Weekly Resolution; Starr Wykoff; Rule of Thirds; August and Counting; Nightshades.

Personnel

Matt Bauder
saxophone, tenor

Matt Bauder: tenor saxophone; Nate Wooley: trumpet; Kris Davis: piano; Jason Ajemian: double bass; Tomas Fujiwara: drums.

Album information

Title: Nightshades | Year Released: 2014 | Record Label: Clean Feed 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.

Near

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.