Musicians that take you on a white-knuckler of a ride. Hold on to your hat!
Paul Flaherty plays alto and tenor sax, James Chumley Hunt is on trumpet and conch shells, Mike Roberson hits the electric guitar with drummer Randall Colbourne pushing things forward. The four songs have a feel that is reminiscent of the freer days of Charles Mingus with 
Eric Dolphy, but they left out any thematic reference points as Hunt and Flaherty create a traffic jam on “Crude Gray Sky” for 17 minutes, the two growl and squawk back and forth as Roberson flails on his blue strings on “Dark Leaves Linger”, Colborne flails and scratches as you hear Flaherty’s pads on “Brazen Eyes” and the team honks like it’s Via Nazionale in Naples on “An Old Man Gone”. An opening and closing melody would help greatly.
The trio of saxist Martin Escalante, drummer Brent Gains and guitarist-looper Brent Gaines take their instruments into the stratosphere on five spontaneously combusted pieces. Eight minutes of cacophonous scratches on reeds drums create a Wacka-Doodle on “Szepleanyok!” and the drums do a Vegematic on the thrashing “Glucklich Jazz”. Tribal beats and itchy guitar strings make up Fisicoculturista” and guitar pickings and swatting loop in with a percussion avalance on “Brozone Layer”. You need a crossing guard to help you across this sigalert!
Drummer Dylan Jack leads an intuitive team of Jerry Sabatini/tp, Eric Hofbauer/g and Anthony Leva/b-sin through a collection of loose yet cohesive tunes. He creates a dark mood with mallets on the elliptical “Gauchais Reaction” that has Sabatini’s sweet Ted Curson-toned horn gliding around Leva’s bass work. A muted horn wafts through strumming bass on “The Epitaph” with some bop tones for horn and clean guitar work on the title piece. A dreamlike “Foot Man” has Hofbauer and Leva giving cohesive yet intuitive messages, with Jack supplying the guiding light. Paths that can be followed with a guide.
While the team of pianist Matthew Shipp, bassist William Parker, drummer Gerald Cleaver and Danile Carter on tenor sax, flute and trumpet perform only three songs, two of which add up to 33 minutes, in some ways they are the most cogent. Carter’s muted trumpet is loose and yet accessible on the ballad “Scintillate” with Cleaver supplying snappy support, while the 13 minute “Majestic Travel Agency” has Parker strolling into the intro before passing the baton to Carter’s warm tenor. The journey changes tempos a number of times with Shipp directing traffic like an NYC cop. Shipp and Parker give hint of “Blue in Green” as Carter sighs on the dark “Ear-regularities” with a warm vibrato and plenty of ruminating reflections. Abstract logic.