KRAFT is a new collective of ace musicians from Baltimore started up by local phenom drummer Mike Kuhl. Kuhl was able to convince Luke Stewart (bass), Dave Ballou (trumpet) and John Dierker (various reeds) to start a band with him, a supergroup united to create highly improvised music that utilizes all the talent contained within this band. Out of Your Head Records, a record label with deep Baltimore roots with an emphasis on the highly improvised jazz that KRAFT practices, is making their debut album possible.
Ballou and Stewart are better-known in broader jazz circles but Kuhl and Dierker are big deals in the Baltimore/DC area, a vibrant jazz hub that’s produced the like of Gary Bartz, Ellery Eskelin and Michael Formanek. Indeed, you will listen to KRAFT and come away wondering why Kuhl and Dierker are not better known; these are the kind of musicians who could make it anywhere but simply chose to stay in Baltimore.
Kuhl in particular is the hero of this disc, as he appears to be setting into motion the direction and feel of every song, using a wide variety of approaches and devices, never content to sit back and simply ‘go with the flow.’
With Kuhl and Stewart charting the rhythmic course of “Ageless One” as they go along, the song moves in mysterious, spiritual ways but culminates in a freedom explosion less than halfway in, then graciously breaks apart and regroups to form an entirely new groove. The interaction between Dierker – on bass clarinet – and Ballou is another focal point as they sometimes finish each other statements.
Dave Ballou is somehow able to make his trumpet sound like it’s sawing to begin “Scoop the Moon,” and that lights the fuse for the others in this dispersed performance marked by Mike Kuhl’s out-of-the-box percussion (“Underneath” moves in much the same way, except that Luke Stewart’s bass playing is much more aggressive). That percussion, by the way, leads right into Kuhl’s thunderous drum display to kick off “Stick And Move,” and by the time Ballou jumps in head first, it’s blessed pandemonium. John Dierker enters on sax and it gets even better. The horns later back off and it’s just Stewart and Kuhl locked into a hard groove. That forms the underpinnings for Dierker’s sublimely dark-hued expressions.
“A Real Mensch” is also launched by drums alone but here, Kuhl takes a much more refined tact. It sets up Ballou’s and Dierker’s interactions rather nicely.
Stewart put his audio production degree to good use and mixed the recordings but keeping them unedited. Thus, what is heard on the album is exactly what was heard during the 2019 livestream concert that this album captures while boasting really good audio fidelity, the best so far from Out of Your Head’s rawer Untamed series of releases.
Get KRAFT starting February 11, 2022 from Bandcamp.
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