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Marco von Orelli - Tommy Meier - Luca Sisera - Sheldon Suter: Lotus Crash

By Glenn Astarita
May 20, 2020
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Marco von Orelli - Tommy Meier - Luca Sisera - Sheldon Suter: Lotus Crash

Recorded live at venues in Switzerland, the respective musicians comprising this quartet have made the rounds across Europe's fertile progressive jazz scene as leaders or valued sideman for numerous entities, largely focused on generating an outside-the-box schema in various shapes, forms and colors. The band translucently shifts paradigms while bringing a signature mode of attack to the table, firmed up by bassist

Luca Sisera

bass, acoustic
b.1975

" data-original-title="" title="">Luca Sisera's stout and lyrical lines amid the quartet's undulating deconstruction and rebuilding processes. Moreover, trumpeter

Marco von Orelli

trumpet

" data-original-title="" title="">Marco von Orelli and saxophonist

Tommy Meier

saxophone, tenor

" data-original-title="" title="">Tommy Meier's sinewy groove-driven unison choruses along with odd-metered detours combine a sense of normalcy with offsetting maneuvers.

Sheldon Suter's brisk and fluid drumming generates quite a bit of pop and nuance. And on works such as "Part of a Light" the band renders spiffy linear progressions, as the bassist and trumpeter traverse a horde of snaky mutations. Yet during other movements throughout the album the band takes its time to explore and reinvent, accomplished with various tempi. Occasionally, they underscore some of

Ornette Coleman

saxophone, alto
1930 - 2015

" data-original-title="" title="">Ornette Coleman's free bop escapades, although they alter the pace on "Maiduguri," commencing with a requiem-like gait, moving towards a steady pace, but colorfully contrasted by Meier's bass clarinet phrasings atop the rhythm section's looping ostinato, and consummated by the hornists' bluesy intonations.

The final track, "Wittgenstein," is nestled in the free zone, featuring the soloists' gritty theme-building exercises, heightened with a rampage of sorts, where they thrust matters into 10th gear via a catchy melodic hook. Simply stated, the musicians cover a wide gamut of jazz-induced genre-bending activities sans any hint of filler material.

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Track Listing

Lotus; Part Of A Light; Spin With The Earth; Forbidden Fruits; Maiduguri; Triptychon; Wittgenstein.

Personnel

Marco von Orelli

trumpet

Tommy Meier

saxophone, tenor

Luca Sisera

bass, acoustic

Sheldon Suter

drums

Album information

Title: Lotus Crash | Year Released: 2019 | Record Label: Ezz-Thetics

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