Jim Knodle and Dave Storrs: Unprepared

A trumpet and drum duet: two sticks, three buttons and a couple of pedals, pursed lips, studied exhalations. A fairly simple concept, on paper.

Unprepared, by trumpeter Jim Knodle and percussionist Dave Storrs, is another shining set of spontaneously composed tunes from Louie Records, out of Corvallis, Oregon.

Drummer Dave Storrs, though not at this point in time a household jazz name—like, say, Elvin Jones—takes percusssion into new dimensions of uncharted fluidity and shifting momentums. His teaming with trumpeter Jim Knodle showcases—beautifully and succinctly—textural differences in respective sounds. Knodle is a versatile horn man, sounding sometimes Miles-like on them mute, then glowing on the open horn with warm tones, breaking up Storrs' gently rolling thunder with soft punctuations—breathy comas and semi-colons, the occasional dash—then shifting to sharper periods and exclamation points on the next improvisational move. Whimsy intermixed with more serious moments, all of it in a fine sharp focus of the Storrsian mode.

This record is unsuitable for cursory listening, like any aural experience that is ultimately rewarding: a wondrous set of sounds, much denser and more complex than one would imagine possible on a a duo date.

Louie Records web site: www.peak.org/~louierec