| The Chicago Underground family are some of the
busiest and brightest musicians calling the Windy City their home these days. Mining
the same creative music territory as Ken Vandermark, Jeb Bishop and Hamid Drake, The
Chicago Underground Trio- Jeff Parker on guitar, Rob Mazurek on cornet, Noel Kupersmith
playing bass and Chad Taylor on drums- bring a sound and aesthetic all their own to the
increasingly notorious Chicago scene.
The opening track "Quail", from their latest
recording Flamethrower, works as sort of a manifesto for the group's "in"
meets "out" M.O. The tune, a showcase for guitarist Parker, begins with a
fairly modest bass line that modulates, seemingly at will. Parker's lines sound
unlabored and are reminiscent of the late Grant Green. Then, like a dense fog coming
in, "evil" Jeff Parker quietly sneaks in to take control. This
Parker is much more spastic, rhythmically and harmonically, replacing the flowing single
line for thick clusters and rhythmic chaos before finally settling down again before the
finish.
Few bands can pull off the kind of shape shifting that
Chicago Underground is capable of. The band bridges the gap between straight ahead
jazz, as heard on the bopish "Warm Marsh", and European-style free improvisation
such as on the title track. Even some electronic experimentation is put in for good
measure with tracks like "Tricepticon". The ace up this group's sleeve is
the way they seamlessly switch from one mode to another. A highlight of the
album is Rob Mazurek's "Woman in Motion" which utilizes Taylor's ultra-flexible
drumming and solid bass work from Kupersmith to allow for the frontline to experiment in
their respective solo outings.
The Chicago Underground Trio are one of the most
consistently exciting and innovative groups, not only in this city, but in the entire
country. I also highly recommend checking them out in other incarnations,
specifically in duo form (Mazurek and Taylor) on 12º of Freedom (Thrill
Jockey) and in expanded form on Playground (Delmark).
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