Noah Kaplan Quartet - Descendants (HatHut Records 2011)

The transparency of the quartet’s intent and mode of operation allow hearing inside the music, from which details of descent and association emerge. In response, memory, and imagination, memory’s mirror, suggest familiar analogies – such as the guitar’s Appalachian folk arpeggios in “Pendulum Music,” the tenor saxophone’s vocalization and the raga-like development of “Descent,” the bluesy edge of “Esther,” the multiple meters in “Rat Man.” Or the way “Wolves” comes together – the fluid electric bass fitting hand-in-glove with the guitar’s fluttering modalities, the groove and textural incident of the drums, the soprano saxophone’s shofar cry. As the improvisational mode coheres, everything relates to melody, even the rhythm section, urging without forcing, alert to alternatives in the moment. — Art Lange
Noah Kaplan saxophone Joe Morris guitar Giacomo Merega electric bass Jason Nazary drums
Noah Kaplan website