Lately, Gordon Grdina has been one of the most restless musicians in the whole jazz world, churning out a profuse amount of mostly original material recorded with different ensembles and formats each time out; switching back and forth from the two instruments he has completely mastered, the guitar and the oud. So it’s very telling that Grdina made it a point to return to a trio he debuted just two years earlier to reconvene and give us a second helping.
Boiling Point (Astral Spirits) is the sophomore release from Grdina’s Nomad Trio, backed by the ablest of pianists and drummers, Matt Mitchell and Jim Black, respectively. The first time out with this crew – the self-titled Nomad – was pure delight from such a high degree of daring musicianship. Once again, Grdina throws out challenging charts and Mitchell and Black just gobble them up. As Grdina says, “I can write anything for this band.”
The impossible songs begins right off with “Boiling Point” (stream above), a dense construction that nearly sounds like a Tim Berne song, which make erstwhile Berne sidemen Mitchell and Black perfect for this task. The support they provide to Grdina as his guitar solos over knotted chord progressions and whiplash tempo changes is a stunning, sonic carnival ride. “Parksville” pretty much goes the same way, but with even tighter integration between rhythm and harmony … and it’s so funky, too.
Like the first two tracks, Gordon Grdina introduces opening pattern alone for “Shibuya.” Oftentimes we might hear the song explode into different directions when Mitchell and Black enter but this time they stay with the initial figure and let it slowly develop until Grdina dishes out a lissome solo prior to Mitchell discreetly nudging the song into a new motif.
“Cali-Lacs” is where the oud makes its appearance, an instrument Grdina has taken to the next level, turning the Middle Eastern mainstay into a more than a viable vessel of complex jazz. He uses it to mingle well with Mitchell and even Black is able to use his drums to tap directly into that convo without timekeeping.
Back on guitar, Grdina and the trio plays widely dispersed for the angular “Koen Dori,” the leads from Grdina and Mitchell are often woven right into the melody. When things start to get a little chaotic, they are making sense out of it in unity.
Grdina is not yet done with his bag of tricks. For “All Caps,” Mitchell plays a simple riff that serves as an underpinning for Black’s hard rocking drumming. Grdina finally enters after more than two minutes of this, inserting jazzy licks as Mitchell adds complexity to that riff and Grdina himself is also pulling the song outside and from there it builds up to a frenzied ending.
There is no trio like Gordon Grdina’s Nomad Trio, where the vast talents of Grdina, Matt Mitchell and Jim Black are pushed to their limits and the best of each comes forth as a result. They are now even more congealed as a unit for Boiling Point, leading to more amazing and unpredictable performances.
Pick up Boiling Point from Bandcamp.
- How Norah Jones Continued to Push Against Convention With ‘The Fall’ - November 23, 2024
- McCoy Tyner and Joe Henderson – ‘Forces of Nature: Live at Slugs’ (2024) - November 21, 2024
- Lydia Salnikova, “Christmas Means a Different Thing This Year” (2024): One Track Mind - November 19, 2024
