In the 21st century "official" jazz polls list the cello in the "miscellaneous" category, despite the fact that the instrument has been used in jazz since 1917 when
Henry Graves
played a fine solo on
W.C. Handy
's hit "Snaky Blues." The modern jazz era that began in the '50s found cellist
Fred Katz
as an integral member of
Chico Hamilton
's experimental chamber jazz quintet before going out on his own.
Ron Carter
played the instrument in lieu of his bass on
Eric Dolphy
's classic
Out There
in 1961. In 1970, France's
Saravah
label introduced listeners to the psych-jazz improv of the
Baroque Jazz Trio
. Throughout the rest of the decade,
Diedre Murray
and
Abdul Wadud
brought the instrument into free and avant-jazz settings, while
Hank Roberts
Ernst Reijseger
pushed boundaries even further during the '80s. The '90s and 21st century have given us inventive players ranging from
Erik Frieldlander
Tom Abbs
to
Fred Lonberg-Holm
Jacob Szekely
. Add Queens, New York-based cellist/composer
Tomeka Reid
to the list as an innovator. She builds on the tradition by covering a wide swathe of ground on
Old New
, the second album by her all-star quartet comprised of guitarist
Mary Halvorson
(who won a MacArthur Foundation grant in 2019), drummer
Tomas Fujiwara
, and bassist
Jason Roebke
.
exists at the crossroads of swinging post-bop, modal jazz, and structured dialogic improvisation.
Reid
's compositions are often anchored in extrapolated melodies and harmonies that descend in a more or less straight line from
Thelonious Monk
but still give her bandmates room to move. After the kinetic bass and drumkit intro to the opening title track,
Halvorson
offer breezy lines juxtaposed against a flatted head. Both players launch into solos simultaneously; thanks to the rhythm section, the piece never loses its pulse and opens wide enough to embrace them both.
Roebke
's strident basslines pop and walk atop
Fujiwara
's rim shots, and tom-toms introduce "Wabash Blues" with its knotty,
Monk
-esque vamp at the front end before
begins a low-register solo journey. The band swings like mad behind her as
comes in with deep blue chord voicings before undertaking her own solo sojourn. "Niki's Bop" was penned for flutist/composer
Nicole Mitchell
,
's mentor. It's a groover with fingerpopping twinned lines from electric guitar and cello.
drops breaks and skittering fills in his snare and hi-hat beat. "Sadie" is lithe, breezy, and hummable, with
delivering a deft pizzicato solo. There are some extremely free moments, too, as on "Edelin," where tonalities explore one another across shifting dynamics. "Peripatetic" is also quite outside, but the rumbling bass and hyperkinetically strummed guitars add a near-hard rock feel to its body. Closer "RN" is a psych-jazz ballad with rich rhythmic atmospherics and canny interplay between
's fingerpicking and reverb effects and
's sweeping pastoral arco display.
is a deeply satisfying listen, and a groundbreaking recording that displays a unique integration of post-bop and modern free jazz. This ensemble's communication is so comfortable that humor, warmth, and compelling harmonic and rhythmic ideas are rendered effortlessly. ~ Thom Jurek