Bobby Bradford / Mark Dresser / Hafez Modirzadeh: Sonic House Reunion

On Sonic House Reunion, three long-time colleagues confirm that familiarity in no way dilutes depth of expression. Cornetist Bobby Bradford and saxophonist Hafez Modirzadeh boast a fertile track record, affirmed by discs such as Live At The Blue Whale (NoBusiness, 2019), Live At The Magic Triangle (NoBusiness, 2017) and Live At The Open Gate (NoBusiness, 2016). Bassist Mark Dresser joined on the last of these, and he rounds out the trio here too. Together they combine for a relaxed session of spontaneous interplay, restless but rooted in tradition.

Bradford, an alumnus of Ornette Coleman, colors his smeary reiterated motifs with a blue tinge, often using a mute to sharpen their expressive edge. He particularly thrives in the conversational cut and thrust with another horn, and Modirzadeh proves the perfect foil. He has long subsumed his own early debt to Coleman into a singular approach that melds jazz with his Iranian heritage, his fluid lines alternately boppish, spluttering with vocalized exclamations or sliding through a slippery legato. Dresser keeps everything moving, implying momentum while playing a full role in the dialogue through his command of texture and counterpoint.

The fluent back and forth of "Intrio" and "Outrio," opens and closes the program. Between times Dresser's tolling pizzicato initiates "She Reflected," in which Bradford channels something between "Lonely Woman" and "Motherless Child," while Modirzadeh traces similar harmonic contours atop Dresser's somber pulse. The bassist sustains a walking feel throughout "Crooked Variations," in a loose off-the-wall orchestration in which cornet and tenor intertwine before settling into an impromptu riff.

A duet between Modirzadeh's wood flute and Dresser's swerving bowing begin "Doodle Bug..Doodle Bug." As the experimental timbres recede, Bradford free-associates fragments of children's rhymes and popular songs. Among them, his refrain includes "Doodlebug, your house is on fire," a poignant reminder that the cornetist lost his house and all his possessions to one of the California wildfires. The conjunction of three composer-improvisers ensures an inescapable sense of form pervades the set, but happily, one in which it sounds as if everyone is still sculpting the shape even as they discover it.