Shadow of The Future (CD)

The working title of this album was, somewhat unimaginatively, “The New York Session.” A title that certainly indicated the album was recorded in the cradle of jazz, the Western world’s cultural melting pot no. 1, New York. A title that also signaled jazz at a high level, with both eyes and ears tuned to tradition and music history. But it was a title that ultimately would not do justice to the music that was captured.

Because as the recordings progressed, it quickly became clear that the five musicians who had gathered in one of the Big Apple’s oldest and most legendary studios — Sear Sound Studio on 48th Street — were in the process of creating something entirely fresh, extraordinarily powerful, and undeniably innovative.

These five top-level musicians connected with such a deep musical understanding that the result is impossible to ignore. The outlines of jazz’s future emerge vividly when the two horn players, cornetist Kirk Knuffke and alto saxophonist Benjamin Koppel, weave their melodic lines in and out of each other. Or when one of New York’s greatest guitarists of all time, Ben Monder, lights up the soundscape — not least through his constant avoidance of predictability, continuously challenging and complementing the horn players’ choices of timbre and tonal patterns. It’s no coincidence that none other than David Bowie — in this very same studio, in fact — chose Ben Monder as the guitarist to shape the sound of the rock icon’s final releases.

And then there’s the rhythm section — which is so much more than just a rhythm section. When double bassist Thommy Andersson, with his deep, rich Swedish tone and remarkable melodic inventiveness, locks in with one of the greatest drumming talents of our time, Johnathan Blake, bass and drums are elevated to far more than a mere foundation for the others’ improvisations.

This tightly connected and extraordinarily responsive quintet is living proof that jazz is still a genre with endless potential — an unexplored creative giant, where musicians at this level, in every phrase and every beat, can surprise, enchant, and move the listener.

The shadow of the future bursts out of the speakers, taking the audience on a journey — both unsettling and nurturing — directly into the future of jazz. And the result speaks for itself.

Kirk Knuffke - cornet 

Benjamin Koppel - alt sax

Ben Monder - guitar

Thommy Andersson - bass

Jonathan Blake - drums