Rob Brown Quartet - Radiant Pools

Rogueart 2

Over the past several years Rob Brown has found valuable stewardship via several French labels; the benefits of expatriation reaped without relocation. Radiant Pools, released on the newly-christened Rogueart imprint, reveals his latest alliance and the results come easily to recommend to fans. Positive or negative depending on perspective, the basic package isn’t all that removed from his past efforts as a leader. Here, he convenes a small combo of East Coast colleagues with a second horn, this time trombonist Steve Swell, completing the frontline. Small-combo free jazz is definitely Brown’s forté and he brings the same skill and verve to the studio on this outing. The program combines punchy freebop-flavored tunes fitted with agreeably tractile heads with more chamber-style pieces like the title track and Brown’s closing “Swarm Village.” This latter piece sheathes pre-composed sounding prologue and post-script segments around a middle section marked by an exuberantly swirling melee of horns and fractious rhythm.

Most of the disc’s tracks hover in the seven to nine minute range and their lengths leave substantial solo space for everyone to expound. Swell and Brown make for a particularly intuitive pair in the foreground sharing a rapport gained from plentiful hours on the bandstand in outfits like the Little Huey Orchestra. Morris plays double bass rather than guitar and his abilities on the upright now appear nearly on par with many of his East Coast peers, particularly when it comes to pizzicato proficiency. Gray fits in implacably as the fourth member, his malleable and muscular rhythms well-suited to the variable propulsive needs of the band. Standout features to my ears include the meaty groove of Morris’ “King Cobra,” which slithers along on a composer-rendered bass vamp and brooding statements from the horns, and the rising-then-receding menace of “Boxed Set,” a Don Cherry-kindred tune that features prime Brown channeling a piquant amalgam of Lyons and McLean. Two content-related collective improvisations under the common title “Semantics” chalk up as less memorable ventures. On both pieces the players engage calculated tonal explorations that end up erring into the nebulous without enough gas to adequately fuel the jets, though “Semantics 2,” the better of the pair, does allow for the welcome appearance of Brown’s anodyne flute.

The path expected of an artist commonly diverges from the path they choose for themselves. Nor should the two necessarily align. Rob Brown’s music is a germane case of this sort of aesthetic tug-of-war for me. I keep anticipating his choice of a direction drastically different from those he’s opted for in the past. He continues to work within the same general lexicon and with the same basic cadre of players, at least on record. It’s a framework within which he obviously feels comfortable and creatively engaged. His chops remain fearsome, his improvisatory command still salubrious. And to be fair, while the intrinsic bag may be the same, the contents remain productive and appealing. But the nagging desire to hear him test his talents in wildly divergent settings endures. Brown’s been gigging recently cellist Daniel Levin and drummer Satoshi Takeishi and the trio is slated to record a new album soon. Fingers crossed that the project is a harbinger of Brown’s decision to break significantly new ground.

~ Derek Taylor