Matt Booth & Palindromes: Mythomania
ears&eyes Records

Bassist Matt Booth has called New Orleans home since 2015 and recorded the second release from his Palindromes quartet in late 2019 at The New Orleans Jazz Museum. Don't infer from that, however, that Mythomania is stylistically rooted in the hallowed musical traditions of the city. The scope of the release is broad and, in reflecting its creator's eclectic interests and experimental leanings, encompasses free improv, intimate balladry, and other forms. Testifying to its range is a set-list featuring four Booth originals and covers of material by Egberto Gismonti, Melvin Gibbs, and Dirty Projectors. With Booth joined by saxophonist Brad Walker, guitarist Chris Alford, and drummer Doug Garrison, the release is more contemporary jazz than than anything Dixieland-related.

The empathy between the four has deepened since the group's self-titled debut was recorded in late 2016 (it appeared on Breakfast for Dinner Records in early 2018), and the ease, assurance, and confidence with which the pieces are handled makes for rewarding listening. The origin of Palindromes actually extends to the early 2010s when Booth formed it as an outlet for his developing compositional voice and his desire to pursue the kind of adventurous music associated with figures such as Paul Motian, Ornette Coleman, and Carla Bley.

Penned by Gismonti, “Agua e Vinho” opens the fifty-minute release alluringly with textural colourations that gradually coalesce into an expressive rendering of the Brazilian guitarist and pianist's composition. After Walker voices the haunting minor-key theme, Booth steps up with a thoughtfully considered solo before returning the spotlight to the saxophonist. His robust horn ruminates reflectively too before the performance culminates in a restatement of the melancholy melody. Listeners familiar with the short-lived Power Tools outfit featuring featured Gibbs, Bill Frisell, and Ronald Shannon Jackson might also remember the bassist's “Howard Beach Memoirs” from the trio's 1987 album Strange Meeting. Gibbs wrote it in memory of Michael Griffith, a young Black man killed in a racially motivated hate crime, and Booth and company use that as an impetus for their own fiery and tumultuous take. In hewing closely to the original, the quartet's soulful ballad treatment of “Keep Your Name” brings a fresh twist to Dirty Projectors' break-up tune, the approach showing the quartet can rein in its experimental impulses when needed. The performance also suggests Walker derives as much pleasure from voicing a strong melody straight as extemporizing freely.

As far as Booth's originals are concerned, an Ornette influence is discernible in the writing of his “Ripped to Shreds,” and echoes of Motian and Frisell emerge in the interplay between Garrison and Alford that follows. The quartet isn't averse to mixing things up in unexpected ways, with the heavy guitar riff that erupts two-thirds of the way through “Diminutive Stature” a clear illustration. Easing the tension thereafter, “High Point” meditates relaxedly on a slow'n'bluesy groove, after which “Structure,” a tune Booth wrote in 2009 and resurrected for the recording, caps Mythomania with a languorous ballad that comes the closest of the seven tunes to conventional jazz. Again we're reminded of the calibre of the musicians involved when Walker and Alford deliver cogent solos.

Throughout the recording, we witness the impact years spent playing together can have on a group. In “Ripped to Shreds” and “Diminutive Stature,” the improvised sections develop patiently, and even during formally structured pieces the quartet's playing is marked by elasticity. Rather than be helmed in by compositional form, the musicians typically treat the pieces as templates conducive to individual and collective expression, and jazz in its more experimental and freer variants informs the performances as the four allow the music to guide them.

July 2021