Technocats: Passionata

The Technocats are a Michigan-based co-op septet devoted for the most part to performing the music of fellow Michigander Gregg Hill, who composed every number on the group's 2026 recording, Passionata, including its sure-to-please "bonus" track, "Double Play."

The first of Hill's compositions, "Normality," sets the enterprise in motion but in so doing lands slightly on the wrong foot. After that lone misstep, however, Passionata easily qualifies as Comeback Album of the Year, as everything else is beyond reproach.

As Hill does not often arrange his music, that assignment rests in the capable hands of Chris Glassman, Nathan Borton, Javier Enrique and Michael Reed, the first three of whom are members of the ensemble—Glassman on bass trombone, Borton on guitar, Enrique on bass. The group's other front-liners are trumpeter Skylar Tang and saxophonist Walter Blanding, with pianist Bryn Roberts and drummer Keith Hall completing the starting lineup.

"I don''t have any great philosophy or any grand view," Hill says of his compositions. "I just try to write good material"—a goal he almost always succeeds in reaching. The high spots on Passionata are plentiful, readily surpassing the few that are less so, thanks on the one hand to Hill's uncommon skills as a composer and on the other to the dexterity and assurance of the Technocats.

That expertise springs to life on the freewheeling "Traffic Jam," a tight-knit groover that morphs at the finish line into something resembling a real-time traffic impasse, this following several high-powered ensemble passages and glistening solos by Tang, Roberts and Glassman. Enrique arranged the bright and lively "Not Van Morrison," on which he trades sharp volleys with Roberts after a powerful statement by Blanding's tenor and before Hall's forceful drum work underscores the bracing coda.

Glassman's frisky arrangment of "Horse Feathers," inspired by a 1932 Marx Brothers film of that name, offers more of the same: a groovy bedrock reinforcing astute solos and exchanges by Tang, Blanding and Glassman and more robust timekeeping by Hall, Roberts and Enrique, the last of whom solos sharply (as do Blanding and Tang) on his splendid arrangement of the luminous "Dancing Light." The multi-hued "Technocats" is yet another gem, a rock-solid groover that encompasses elegant solos by Glassman, Blanding, Borton and Enrique.

Glassman and Enrique co-arranged "The Race Is On," wherein they and Borton hustle to keep pace with its dynamic compass while Hall and the ensemble lend suitable fire and brimstone. The album's title song, which deftly blends Latin rhythms with straight-on jazz and classical citations, leads to the more gentle and introspective "Nostalgia," which pivots midstream to a livelier and more emphatic groove that accommodates nimble solos by Glassman and Tang and more ferocity from rhythm, brass and reeds. The boppish bonus track serves as icing on the cake, a buoyant showpiece that hurries forward at a rapid pace behind agile solo work by Borton, Glassman, Tang Blanding, Enrique and Hall.

Those who are partial to jazz that packs a melodic and rhythmic punch while swinging hard should get their musical kicks from Passionata, which does all of the above and more, presenting compositions by the masterful Hill in the strongest possible light.