This Is Book’s Music

Groder & Greene is a new project bringing together trumpeter Brian Groder and pianist Burton Greene to create the kind of artistic jazz that borders between absolute freedom and brilliance. Along with Rob Brown (alto saxophone), Ray Sage (drums), and Adam Lane (double bass), Groder and Greene play this music as if they were born to do it, and in fact a French critic says that “Groder speaks jazz as if it were his mother’s tongue.” One doesn’t know what would happen if the musicians here would take advantage of the mother’s tongue or other parts of her being, but you get to hear the ultimate in flirting and sonic squirting with the 9 songs that are here.

As for that “absolute freedom and brilliance”, what these five musicians like to do is create something quite good, and you hear the group building a structure that sounds quite good. Two minutes after completion, they’re throwing their instruments down, jumping up and down and leaving things in the dust. Good, because it means these musicians have to build from scratch all over again.

There’s alsio a lot of different influences going on here, from something that would sound like home in Kansas City or New Orleans as much as it would in the streets of New York City or in Europe. Jazz for some can be absolute, but then you have others who are endeared to the absolute so much that you either have an asthetic that wants to keep it real in a Wynton Marsalis sense while others want to put on their John Zorn or Phil Woods caps and do damage. Groder & Greene, due to their previous session work and experiences, balance to balance the former and latter with something that you want to hear many times over. This album is an album you’ll want to recommend for anyone who asks about quality jazz albums of 2009. There are many, but this is one of the best.