Matt Shulman: So It Goes

Take a trumpet trio that could have waltzed through the revolving doors of a '50s supper club, add sparse vocals, multiphonics, and lightly perceptible electronics, and you have a jazz group for the 21st Century. Trumpet player Matt Shulman is among a group of young jazz composers who are unafraid to step beyond traditional constraints, still maintaining a strong link to their forebears, and So It Goes breathes freshness. It maintains a stirring alacrity within an aura of plaintive comfort.

Shulman combines schmaltz with gracious innovation and performs multiple tasks at once. When he's not singing and blowing into his horn at the same time on the title track, he forays into lounge singing. His vocal delivery is soft and lazy on "My Funny Valentine, not exactly beautiful, but it hints at the dusty quality of something vintage and treasured while electronics drone constantly below Jason Wildman's drum brushes and the occasional uneven thump of Matt Clohesy's bass. The tune conjures moody glamour with its dreamy essence.

The deeply emotional "Key begins with the bass and drums planting a rugged foundation. But the rhythm section ultimately surrenders to Shulman's horn lines, which exhale like a giant breath, releasing great wads of frustration and evening out to one sustaining plain of sound. For the final track the group gives Bach a shot of surrealism with "Air For The G String as Wildman's cymbal solo opens up the way for Shulman's graceful horn melody. Together they form a floating harmony that drifts off like a splendid hallucination.

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