Take a deep breath. Close your eyes and count to three. Onu, dos, trio? My Spanish may need a little work. While I look up a local bookseller who can deliver an English to Spanish dictionary, why don’t you give the smooth harmonic flow and cascading intrigues of the Chad Taylor Trio a try? Lovingly woven free jazz phases orbiting around the impeccably timed percussive personae of one Chad Taylor. The ranks of the titular Trio are filled out by saxophonist Brian Settles and pianist Neil Podgurski and together they perform chatty, engaging compositions that are surprisingly restrained for being largely improvised.
In case this is your first encounter with the man, Chad Taylor is a renowned improvisational jazz drummer and founder of the Chicago Underground Duo, along with trumpeter Rob Mazurek. Taylor grew up in Chicago, later moving to Philadelphia, and has provided inspiration and percussion for nearly every noteworthy improviser of the last thirty years, including Fred Anderson, Pharoah Sanders, Nicole Mitchell, and... I could go on, but I think my figures would be worn down to nubs before I could complete an exhaustive list of his collaborations. Suffice to say, he’s in demand, and after listening to his latest effort, The Daily Biological, it should not be hard to see why.The first track off of The Daily Biological “The Shepard” puts Settles conversational sax playing front and center, backed by a robust interplay between Taylor’s cymbal work and Podgurski’s nimble key dance. “Prism” has a touch of Caribbean-inflected bebop ala Elmo Hope, while the tense “Resistance” is deliberately paced and contemplative, “Untethered” sustains this tempo with more classical, Stravinsky-esque flourishes, and “Recife” has a heavy Brazilian influence while maintaining a free jazz spirit. I don't want to put too fine a point on it, but I'm going to go ahead and do it anyway. The Daily Biological is a sublime record. One that just might be a contender for as a new addition to the Chicago free jazz canon.
Grab a copy of The Daily Biological from Cuneiform Records here.
