It seems that trumpeter Jeremy Pelt takes a Jekyll and Hyde approach to jazz; he alternates electronic albums with keyboards and funky beats with straightahead acoustic ones. This is his turn for unplugging, and he releases a doozy here with Simona Premazzi/p, Ben Allison/b and a pair of drummers in Billy Drummond and Victor Lewis. The coupling of drummers gives an extra oomph to the music, as if the strong toned Pelt needed anyone to tell him to blow.He and Premazzi drive hard with Clifford Jordan’s “Glass Bead Games” ands well as a lovely rad of Wayne Shorter’s “Vonetta.” The drums rustle in the bramble bushes with Pelt’s muted horn on “Everything You Can Imagine Is Real” while Pelt goes into a zone defence against the two drummers on the free form “Ruminations On Eric Garner.” There’s a white knuckler intricacy on “Nephthys” while the cymbals are being ridden like a wild mustang, and the albulm closes with a hip blues on “The Old Soul Of The Modern Day Wayfarer.” There’s a hint of Pelt’s viscera in the title of the last tune, as he loves to take a trip here and there, but you know you’re with a guy who knows where home is.
High Note Records