Description

Propulsion is the debut album by a stellar quartet of journeymen Chicago improvisers assembled by saxophonist and Aerophonic Records founder Dave Rempis. Vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz is known for his extensive work with the late Peter Brötzmann, Hamid Drake, Mike Reed, and his own trio Sun Rooms. Bassist Joshua Abrams is the leader of Natural Information Society, perhaps the best-known group internationally to emerge from Chicago over the last decade. He also maintains longstanding relationships with visionary musicians like Nicole Mitchell, Jeff Parker, and Hamid Drake. Drummer Tyler Damon, the youngest of the group, has put his name on the map in the trio Kuzu, with saxophonist Mars Williams, guitarist Tashi Dorji, and adventure seekers from later generations like Gerrit Hatcher and Eli Winter.

Despite those abundant street creds, the debut album by this quartet isn’t some sort of “all-star” outing. Rempis rarely organizes groups like that. Instead this band’s music is true to an antiquated aesthetic that he’s embraced for decades; one that’s wholly alien to the quick-paced social media driven environment of our time. He gives his groups the space to develop patiently and organically through long-term relationships and regular work.

In this case, some of that work stretches back for decades. Rempis and Abrams first met as students at the same Chicago university in the mid-90’s, and have maintained a working relationship since the early 2000’s; particularly through their longstanding quartet with Jim Baker and Avreeayl Ra, and their chamber trio with Tomeka Reid. The connections between Adasiewicz and Rempis have a similar tenure, especially through the trio Wheelhouse with bassist Nate McBride that started back in 2005. That relationship runs deep enough that during Adasiewicz’s long break from performing from roughly 2016-2022, Rempis was almost the only person who could coax him out in public for the occasional concert. (This album is also Adasiewicz’s first group recording made since 2017!) Rempis and Damon spent great swaths of time on tour together with the trio Kuzu between 2018 and 2021, further delving into their shared conception with a weekly outdoor duo concert in a Chicago park in their neighborhood during the warmer months of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. It’s tough to overstate the musical bonds they developed on those gigs, working through the ongoing emotional catastrophe of the pandemic with that one regular outlet. Both Abrams and Adasiewicz individually made guest appearances on those concerts as well, laying the groundwork for this quartet formation. As Ornette spelled out so clearly, “friends and neighbors, that’s where it’s at,” something that the pandemic made even more clear.

As a quartet, these deep roots intertwined in almost total unity when the band first hit in summer 2022. But despite the urge, they didn’t rush to get this record out. They dug deeper to achieve an even more singular vision over the next year before this album was recorded. Propulsion documents a band that’s done the work.

This recording also catches them at a moment of major emotional impact. It documents the final concert of more than 900 that Rempis curated and produced as part of a weekly Thursday-night series of jazz and improvised music that stretched for more than twenty-one years from 2002-2023. There are far too many masters and greats who performed on that series to even begin to name, many of whom are no longer with us. And its impact on the Chicago scene during that time was significant to say the least. The last held notes on this record send an era of Chicago improvised music off into whispered tendrils of breath. Thankfully, in this case that ending brings a new beginning. 

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