ROB MAZUREK — Rob Mazurek Quartet : Father's Wing (review)

ROB MAZUREK — Rob Mazurek Quartet : Father's Wing album cover Album · 2022 · 21st Century Modern Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
snobb
American trumpeter / multi-instrumentalist Rob Mazurek is a significant figure on the US contemporary jazz scene, and a prolific recording artist as well. He has offered a lot of unusual cross-genre musical experiments, mixing jazz with electronics and free improvs, adding Latin rhythms to bold techno, etc.

The main problem with Mazurek's music is that he often offers some interesting ideas and songs, but then mixing them with lots of raw material and less attractive pieces, sometimes just fillers. Almost any of his album would be best served with some editing. "Father's Wing", dedicated to his late father, is a rare exemption, really for the good.

Recorded with the excellent multi-national quartet of American drummer Chad Taylor, Canadian pianist Kris Davis and Norwegian acoustic bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (it's already this quartet's second album, after 2019's "Desert Encrypts Vol. 1"), it contains much better organized, executed and, what is really important, - composed music. Mazurek himself plays piccolo trumpet and adds lots of analog synth sounds.

The album's music is airy, almost minimalistic, with many beautiful tunes and complex, but quite ascetic arrangements. This release is worth hearing just for its almost 13-minutes long opener, "Crimson Song". Flying melody, full of optimism, played by the trumpeter over tasteful synth loops and framing rhythms of the drummer and pianist. This will stay in the listener's head for hours, or even days ahead. More rhythmic pieces, such as "Amber Wing" or "Spooled" are knotty, but don't destroy the beauty of the opener at all.

Coming after "Sun Ohm 3", is a ballad, but without even a trace of melancholy. "From Here To There" and "Sun Ohm 1" and the short "Signal Frame" are all more energetic, but still blessed with melodic snippets and varying complex rhythms. "Father’s Wing" is another of the album's beauty, sensual piano-based ballad, full of sunlight. "Ice Castles of Saturn", the closer, is a true free jazz piece, still quite bright and meditative, perfectly framing all of the album's conceptual music.

"Father's Wing" is Rob Mazurek at his best, in some of the best company he has ever had.
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