It’s fine to say that a musician has found his or her own language, but what does that really mean? First off, what is language, really? In essence, it’s a symbolic communication method, one that can be transmitted by voice or in written form. So I suppose music, which is similarly conveyed by sounds that…
Read more…Awaits Silent Tristero’s Empire is an epic four-part suite based on the fictitious songs found scattered throughout celebrated author Thomas Pynchon’s early novels V., The Crying of Lot 49, and Gravity’s Rainbow. Oboist Kyle Bruckmann conceived this post-modern “musical phantasmagoria” as the first long-form composition written for Wrack, his experimental chamber jazz ensemble, employing an expanded version of the…
Read moreThe unusual front line of Kyle Bruckmann’s Wrack—viola, oboe, and bass clarinet—gives the quintet a narrow timbral range, but it uses wriggling, high-intensity counterpoint to create an exhilaratingly bright, multilayered sound. As Bruckmann says in the liner notes of the group’s forthcoming third album, Cracked Refraction (due from Porter Records on February 21), “I take…
Read moreIn Chicago jazz, you can come home again. Since the music thrives on change, it’s natural for bands to come and go, and for musicians to stay in one place for a while and then move on. But there’s always an open door for you to return and pick up where you left off. Consider…
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