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BRAD GOODE Nature Boy Delmark DE 5478

1. Nature Boy
2. I Remember You
3. Nightmare of the Mechanized World
4. Sealed With a Kiss
5. Tres Palabras (Without You)
6. Celedon
7. Just in Time
8. So Beats My Heart for You
9. Infrapolations
10. It’s 4 a.m.
11. No Idea
12. All Through the Night.
 
Brad Goode – Trumpet
Jeff Jenkins – Piano
Johannes Weidenmueller – Bass
Todd Reid - Drums.

Last year I reviewed Brad Goode's previous Delmark CD, Hypnotic Suggestion, and praised it highly. Its sleeve-note said that Brad was interested in "working with elements of abstraction within standard forms". He does exactly that on this new CD: performing a number of jazz standards (plus four of his own accessible compositions) but taking enough liberties with the originals to make this much more than an easy-listening album.

You can hear the band's adventurousness from the very first track. The theme of Nature Boy is stated clearly but Brad and his cohorts then take the tune on an exciting roller-coaster ride, with pianist Jeff Jenkins interposing dislocating chords and taking a solo which does the unexpected with the familiar tune. Johannes Weidenmueller's bass solo is accompanied by busy drumming from Todd Reid. The other standards are subjected to similarly unhackneyed treatment. Jeff Jenkins' lyrical piano solo on I Remember You is challenged by forceful drums, while Brad Goode's muted solo is both rhapsodic and playful. Sealed With a Kiss is driven along by powerful bass and drums in jazz-rock mode. Just in Time features a thrusting bass solo which you can actually hear. And Cole Porter's All Through the Night is taken at an incredibly hectic pace, with Brad sounding as manic as Dizzy Gillespie ever did and Todd Reid racing round the drums like a wild dervish.

Brad's own compositions are equally full of the sound of surprise. Nightmare of the Mechanized World takes us on a weird journey, contrasting with the more placid Celedon and the atmospheric It's 4 a.m. Too many jazz albums these days are the-mixture-as-before, treading familiar paths without stimulating the listener. With Brad Goode, you can expect the unexpected – and you get it.

Tony Augarde

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