Billy Mohler: Anatomy
Contagious Music

Adam O'Farrill: Visions of Your Other
Biophilia Records

Some albums fail to meet expectations; others exceed them. Falling firmly into the latter category is Billy Mohler's Anatomy, a major reason for it being the musicians joining the bassist, tenor saxophonist Chris Speed, trumpeter Shane Endsley, and drummer Nate Wood. While Mohler and Wood have played together in multiple contexts for years, other connections tighten the quartet's attack: the drummer and Endsley are members of Kneebody, and Speed and Mohler play together in the Jimmy Chamberlin Complex, the outfit led by The Smashing Pumpkins drummer. With such personnel involved, Anatomy, Mohler's follow-up to Focus, his auspicious 2019 debut with the same line-up, can't help but hit hard.

Mohler comes by his chops honestly. He's a Berklee College of Music graduate who also attended the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz (since 2019 The Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz) and beyond establishing his jazz credentials has done sessions with everyone from Dolly Parton and Nile Rogers to Sia. Testifying to his abilities are three solo bass interludes, that, being brief, don't slow momentum; if anything, they provide welcome relief from the combustible quartet cuts. The fabulous opener “Abstract 1” includes an overdub, but the cuts are otherwise straight-up and to-the-tape.

The performances are earthy in keeping with an album recorded at Lucy's Meat Market in Los Angeles. The takes are also marked by spontaneity, a natural consequence of a recording where for the most part rehearsal takes are the ones issued (according to the leader, the four neither discussed arrangements nor how a tune would start or end). That the pieces sound polished speaks to the rapport they share and the personal and musical histories that've developed over time. The absence of a chordless instrument also frees the band, not sending it into free improv but liberating it nonetheless.

That the album will be special is clear the moment the first quartet track lunges into place. Animated by a locked-in rhythm, “Fight Song” wails from the drop, with Speed and Endsley uniting for a tasty bop-styled theme and thrusting across one another otherwise. A similar high-spiritedness informs “Nightfall,” whose slinkiness is bolstered by the ever-inventive rhythmning of Mohler and Wood. Kneebody fans will already be aware of how much the drummer elevates its material, and he does much the same here—Mohler's lucky to have him. Singling out Wood shouldn't be interpreted to suggest the playing by the others is less inspired, however. Speed's his usual imaginative and explorative self, and, as his acrobatic turn on “Equals” shows, Endsley's equally impactful. Whether anchoring the band with an unwavering pulse (the languorous “Perseverance”) or pushing it forcibly (“Exit”), the leader is unerring and gripping throughout. All are fully dialed into the collective endeavour, and no one benefits more than the listener.

Strong too is the third release from Adam O'Farrill and his Stranger Days Quartet, Visions of Your Other. At this stage, the trumpeter—the son and grandson of pianist Arturo O'Farrill and bandleader Chico O'Farrill, respectively—is less an up-and-comer than an established presence high on the list of first-call players. Joined by Xavier Del Castillo (tenor sax), Walter Stinson (bass), and Zack O'Farrill (drums), the quartet works through six pieces, four by O'Farrill plus a Stinson original and Ryuichi Sakamoto cover. The leader's developed his identity through his own releases and in sideman gigs with Mary Halvorson, Anna Webber, Rudresh Mahanthappa, and others, and Visions of Your Other is the first of his quartet outings to feature Del Castillo, a member since 2019 in place of Chad Lefkowitz-Brown.

Similar to Anatomy, the performances on Visions of Your Other are marked by spontaneity, but the stylistic approach is fundamentally different. Whereas Mohler and company serve up a hard-edged attack, O'Farrill's unit opts for explorative pathways far off the traditional grid. That's apparent from the start in an inspired treatment of Sakamoto's “stakra,” from his 2017 album async and written when he was undergoing treatment for throat cancer. The trumpeter's experimental bent comes to the fore in the way a twenty-second electronic sample of the quartet's playing is woven into the textural moodscape. As ear-catching is Stinson's “Kurosawa at Berghain” for the way it blends evocations of the Berlin techno club and the legendary Japanese director into a weirdly swinging dance-inflected showcase for the leader and Del Castillo. While Visions of Your Other is no freeform blowing exercise, the leader does elevate the tune with a substantial solo.

Written when O'Farrill was working at Morning Glory Farm in Bethel, Maine in the summer of 2017, “Inner War” deals with the distress engendered by bringing chickens to slaughter and is striking for punctuating the bassist's bowing with staccato unison phrases by the front-liners and working a funky feel into its design. “Hopeful Heart,” inspiration for it derived from a D. H. Lawrence short story, finds the quartet delving into contemplative ballad territory when not loosening the reins for more muscular moments. The ponderous meditation “Blackening Skies,” which O'Farrill wrote after enduring a brutal New York heat wave and summer monsoons in Los Angeles, proves ear-catching too for its staggered, hocketing-like horn phrasings and suitably blustery character.

July 2022