Cool from start to finish, Your Brother's Keeper, featuring Gary Bartz, first emerged from the London Jazz scene. Gary himself has been a world-renowned saxophonist since the 1970s, when his work with Miles Davis catapulted him to the forefront of jazz in America.
This latest collaboration was brought together by Gilles Peterson.
If playing sax with Miles Davis is not cool enough, then take a look at his back catalogue, and you will discover that Gary has been a leading voice of African and world music-influenced jazz since the 70's. He has left his mark on a slew of albums, both solo and in collaboration.
This track is an easy pick for me. It is the opening track on the Qobuz Album of the Week, "Where Rivers Meet". Within seconds, I connected with the modern twist on an often-overlooked genre. The track begins with a low drone from an electronic keyboard. This is joined early on by Bartz's soulful saxophone, while tinkling percussion and more keyboards, sounding more like violins, support the sax. The saxophone has layers of reverb, triggering underlying extended or sustained notes that add up and build. This atmospheric panoply continues to build slowly and certainly until 1m23s, when a double bass interjects with what becomes a hypnotic riff that introduces rhythmic structure, holding things in place until the drum entry at 1m33s.
The double bass has a very low tone that will exercise the greediest of subwoofers, while the delicate tinklings require complete separation to avoid being lost. The kick drum figure sounds like it was created with an instrument with an enormous diameter - Like a calling drum. It produces more extremely low-end content, while a bunch of other percussion create an almost African vibe.
A harmony line to the saxophone-led riff is provided by the trumpet, and the journey begins properly. There are overdubs of trumpet and saxophone that create full, close-harmony chords. All the time, arpeggiated figures from an electronic keyboard build on the ambient themes introduced at the beginning, until the whole soundstage envelops the listener and carries them away.
At 2m37s, a descending bass line carries all other instruments with it, providing interest and relief. Following this, the bass and percussion continue to lay down a groove, allowing the saxophonist to let loose. The accompanying electronics are wound right back to allow the sax to take centre stage. At 3 minutes, these mix back in but with different and very interesting sounds, some of which sound a little like heavily modified human voices. This continues as delay-echo on the sax is panned across the sound stage, as are other vestigial elements. I would imagine that on headphones, these would be most impactful and could perhaps drive the listener a little crazy. In my car, they just sound really cool and demonstrate the width and depth of the sound stage available from my Voce II speakers.
At 4m09s, we are treated to a trumpet solo played with every bit as much passion and exquisite tone by Axel Kaner-Lidstrom. Meanwhile, the percussion is clearly identifiable as a full drum kit adn bass tone seems to reach even lower. The electronic ambience is still keeping everything interesting without detracting from the virtuoso playing.
At 5m7s, the sax/trumpet enlarged chorus is reprised while everything else comes up a notch in level and intensity until the final held chord, which fades to the right.
In the air-conditioned comfort of my car, this track is just the epitome of cool. Well, it is jazz after all!
Cauldron is the opening track on Where the Rivers Meet, by Your Brother's Keeper. Listen to the 24-bit 96 kHz rendering for full effect!