Chicago trumpeter Malachi Thompson always has been a charismatic soloist, but his work showed added fervor Friday night at the Green Mill Jazz Club.
Perhaps that’s not so surprising, considering that Thompson was sharing front-line duties with one of the more intense reed players in jazz, Gary Bartz.
Combine Thompson’s searing melody lines with Bartz’s piercing and vibratoless tone on soprano and alto saxophones, and you have a front line that renders amplification virtually unnecessary.
Not that Thompson and Bartz’s quintet stressed volume above all else. Rather, it was the musical ferocity, emotional directness and improvisational economy of their playing–at all tempos–that gave their music its considerable impact.
This was lean, modern and forceful jazz improvisation in which not a note or gesture was wasted. In every phrase, Thompson and Bartz pushed aggressively from first note to last, with only a few well-chosen pitches along the way. On the rare occasion when Thompson or Bartz offered be-bop-tinged flurries of notes, these were more decorative than anything else.
For the most part, though, Thompson and Bartz made their points through phrases that were stripped down to their essence. With pianist Kirk Brown, bassist Yosef Ben Israel and drummer Dana Hall producing great waves of color and rhythm behind them, Thompson and Bartz pushed quickly from one musical climax to the next.
Most of the music played in the first set Friday night had been written by Thompson, whose composed work tends to emphasize dramatic, rhetorical gestures. Thus, several of the evening’s compositions opened and closed with the simple declamatory phrases (performed in unison by both horn players) that are Thompson’s signature.
Because Thompson’s themes tend to emphasize just a few pitches stated in fanfare-like fashion, there’s a great deal of room in which to improvise. But both players developed these telegraphic opening themes by extending the harmonic range of the tunes rather than by adding notes.
Thompson was in particularly fine form, his solos unflinchingly bold, his phrasing forthright, his technique nearly flawless. Here was jazz trumpet playing that took full account of the instrument’s past while pushing into experimental territory as well.
Bartz picked up on Thompson’s lead, matching the man’s boldness of conception, then exceeding it. To hear an alto saxophone produce so blistering a sound was to understand anew the expressive extremes this instrument can attain.
