The first sound you hear on trombonist
Samuel Blaser's witchy 2018 album, Early in the Mornin', is veteran saxophonist
Oliver Lake seemingly invoking the rising sun with a guttural rubato solo. This is no dewy AM yoga stretch, but a muscle-stiff groan to the universe. It sets the tone for what is to come on an album that finds the Swiss-born
Blaser balancing his love of rustic blues traditions with more heady, spectral delights. Here, the trombonist plays both his own evocative original compositions and deftly reimagined traditional pieces, including work songs, blues standards, and songs from the British folk heritage. He even brings the concept full circle, literally evoking the rounded, throaty vocals of
Lead Belly with his trombone on "Black Betty." Along with
Lake, who plays on two tracks,
Blaser generously shares the spotlight throughout with his longtime bandmates pianist
Russ Lossing, bassist
Masa Kamaguchi, and drummer
Gerry Hemingway. Also supplying his own brand of kinetic, serpentine magic on two tracks is guest trumpeter
Wallace Roney. Many of the cuts here showcase
Blaser's robust tone and wide-swinging improvisations framed by the burnt sparkle of
Lossing's keyboard and the organic tumult of
Kamaguchi and
Hemingway's interlocking rhythms. It's an atmospheric blend that brings to mind the legendary '70s Detroit
Tribe Records albums of trombonist
Phil Ranelin. The sound is especially redolent on cuts like the fractured, organ-rich ballad "Tom Sherman's Barroom," the funky atonalist swamp boogie of "Creepy Crawler," and the deep space modalism of "Mal's Blues." Elsewhere,
Roney brings a similarly '70s-esque dark energy, communing with
Blaser and
Lake on the rhythmically mutative, gospel menace of "Levee Camp Moan Blues," and then shifting from spare dusky tones to fiery group squalls on "The House Carpenter." These tracks all smolder with a lively, almost ancestral energy, conjuring a strange and unpredictable celebration of blues and other rural folk traditions. ~ Matt Collar