This 2013 Clean Feed release finds
Kris Davis leading a Brooklyn-based creative jazz quintet featuring musicians -- saxophonist
Ingrid Laubrock, violist
Mat Maneri, double bassist
Trevor Dunn, and drummer
Tom Rainey -- so highly attuned to the pianist/composer's conception that her guiding hand sometimes seems barely perceptible, yet the group is never less than wholly unified. Which means
Davis is both leader and collaborator in the best and truest sense of those words. Many of the pieces on
Capricorn Climber begin with themes or dialogues voiced searchingly by one or more of the ensemble members, and while the title track, "Pi Is Irrational," "Big Band Ball," and "Dreamers in a Daze" don't begin forcefully, some form of energized catharsis is ultimately in store. Yet even as the music lingers in a free rhythmic zone with fragmented, initially hesitant motifs, the sonic puzzle pieces fit together with a combination of improvisational looseness and the clear-cut intention of chamberesque modern composition, with nothing out of place. And as the music proceeds, the routes taken toward apexes of tight unison lines or roiling free jazz demonstrate remarkable intuition among the bandmembers, with
Davis as both catalyst and wholly involved participant.