Bassist, bandleader and composer Adam Hopkins has participated in numerous, notable progressive and improvisational jazz projects over the years like Ideal Bread and Turn Around Norman, also serving as a valuable sideman to forward-thinking musicians such as Kate Gentile. Crickets (Out Of Your Head Records) is his debut recording project under his own name, and it shows all the same disdain for being pegged as all the other music to which he’s been connected.
For his Crickets ensemble, Hopkins assembled hardened warriors of the out-of-the-box jazz scene like electric guitarist Jonathan Goldberger (Bazingas, Jacob Garchik, Chris Lightcap), drummer Devin Gray and not one not two but three saxophonists: Anna Webber, Ed Rosenberg, and Ideal Bread cohort Josh Sinton. Though these recordings were made in 2017, this band had first coalesced three years earlier. Together they flesh out Hopkins’ vision of discreet, multi-faceted charted melodies smashed up against the bombast of indie rock and the collective spontaneity of jazz.
In reality, that often means pitting Goldberger’s post-rock riffing opposite the srores and instinctive excursions of three reeds using, for instance, an aggressive but knotty figure that is perfect for both Goldberger’s guitar rock and the trilogy of saxophones for “Crime of the Year.”
On “Mudball,” Hopkins along with Goldberger and Gray lead a tense, swaying figure on an odd time signature that the sax players leverage with pert harmonies. Afterwards, the tight structure descends into near-chaos when Goldberger goes off into freaky guitar phonics as a tenor saxophone gets unhinged. A new motif rises from the ashes that also heads straight into desolation with all the horns causing a ruckus.
Hopkins goes from dramatics to pensive dreaminess with “Haven of Bliss,” but characteristic of Hopkins’ compositions, that’s only part of the story. Moving into a more hopeful direction, the song finds its footing as it marches toward an anthemic high point. The buzzing of the trio of horns that ushers in “I Think the Duck Was Fine” is followed by a cascade from them and culminating in an off-the-hook bass saxophone explosion by Rosenberg.
The free form playing that happened as pop-up moments throughout most of the tracks becomes the major part of “Scissorhands.” And “The Minnow” is the one spot where Hopkins takes a break from leading a band and show off a little standup bass proficiency.
Starting with a foundation of the rock of Hopkins’ youth and informed by his later love of jazz with a dash of chamber music, Crickets introduces Adam Hopkins as one of the few talents with the vision to make jazz directed at the current and future generations, not the past ones.
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