Jon Lundbom + Big Five Chord, “The Bottle” from Jeremiah (2015)

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“The Bottle” begins as if this is going to be a nice little bebop tune but soon veers off the tracks, Big Five Chord Style.

Bryan Murray on balto! sax and Jon Irabagon on alto leap together into a dissonant theme, barely holding it within the lines, and back out to make way for the guitarist and leader Jon Lundbom, who discharges jazzy single line/chord combinations with fractured phrasing. The highlight comes from a skittish, nasty-assed balto! junket from Bryan Murray that’s so thoroughly merciless that no one needs to add more to it and the performance meekly comes to an end.

That’s typically what happens when an outlaw jazz guitarist and composer such as Jon Lundbom leads a band consisting of refugees from Mostly Other People Do The Killing and Bryan and the Haggards; bassist Moppa Elliot and drummer Dan Monaghan make up a rhythm section that manages (through telepathy, I suppose) to keep things together.

On February 10, 2014, Jon Lundbom and his merry crew of talented misfits Big Five Chord will issue their sixth studio album. Like the other BFC records, Jeremiah is coming our way via Elliot’s Hot Cup Records. Lundbom’s original tune “The Bottle” streamed above is a good indicator that there’s no let up in Jeremiah from those previous five records.

S. Victor Aaron