Jeremy Pelt - Jiveculture (2016) [Official Digital Download 24-bit/96 kHz]

Great musicians need to play with great musicians. It's not an ego-driven game, it's tug-of-war. The way to get better, expand one's horizons as both technician and visionary, is to have someone capable of challenging one's established ability. Artists travel new paths most often because someone or something pushes us. Perhaps it's for that reason that Jeremy Pelt has long entertained a wish to make a recording with Ron Carter, a solid claimant to the title of Greatest Living Bassist. “I didn't know how it would happen, I didn't know what it was going to be,” the trumpeter says, “But I knew I wanted to do a record with Ron.” With Jive Culture, that wish becomes reality. Long-time associates Danny Grissett and Billy Drummond are on hand backing Pelt as he roars and soars through some new compositions, a couple of standards and Ron Carter’s own “Einbahnstrasse”. Not to be missed!

Taking a more stripped-down approach than the expansive electric path he's been pursuing since 2013's Water and Earth, trumpeter Jeremy Pelt's 2016 album, #Jiveculture, is a visceral exploration of small-group post-bop. It's also Pelt's first album featuring legendary bassist and Miles Davis associate Ron Carter. Also joining Pelt here are longtime bandmates pianist Danny Grissett and drummer Billy Drummond. While Pelt has never completely eschewed swinging, harmonically challenging, straight-ahead jazz, his previous efforts, Water and Earth, Face Forward, Jeremy, and Tales, Musings, and Other Reveries were notable for their more experimental flourishes that combined Pelt's love of hip-hop and electronic dance music with his reverence for '70s-era jazz fusion, à la Miles Davis' Bitches Brew. For much of his career though, Pelt has excelled at the kind of organic, modal-based jazz that Davis played in the mid-'60s. This is the approach he takes on #Jiveculture and one that works perfectly with the addition of Carter, whose languid, supple bass style helped to define modern jazz. Here, Pelt and company dive headlong into a set of originals and lesser-played standards, including a jaunty take on Carter's own "Einbahnstrasse." Similarly compelling is the relaxed midtempo swinger "Dream Dancing," which brings to mind both mid-'50s Miles and '80s Wynton Marsalis. Davis is also evoked on the angular "The Haunting" and the lyrical, sad-eyed ballad "Akua," with Pelt utilizing a plaintive Harmon mute. Ultimately, while #Jiveculture is a more stripped-down, traditional jazz production than Pelt's previous releases, it's also one of his more densely packed, flowing with harmonic and melodic ideas that are all the more striking when set against the straight-ahead framework of a quartet.

Tracklist:

01 - Baswald's Place
02 - Einbahnstrasse
03 - Dream Dancing
04 - A Love Like Ours
05 - The Haunting
06 - Rhapsody
07 - Akua
08 - Desire

Musicians:
Jeremy Pelt - trumpet
Danny Grissett - piano
Ron Carter - bass
Billy Drummond - drums


Thanks to the Original customer!