CORPULENT

Tenor saxophonist Gary Thomas, a Baltimore native, eats melodies for lunch. With the confidence of a master musician, Thomas stakes out new melodic territory along the vast topography of thier record’s urgent rhythms. Thomas has a grainy, sinewy, and hard-edged saxophone sound that has been compared with Wayne Shorter, Sonny Rollins, and Joe Henderson. Coming to prominence in the mid 1980's as a member of the Miles Davis Band, Thomas became a vital member of Jack DeJohnette's Special Edition where he played alongside fellow saxophonist Greg Osby. Most recently he toured with the Herbie Hancock Quartet.

Thomas’ sound is bolstered and propelled by Swedish bassist Joel Grip and drummer Devin Gray, a New Englander. Grip and Gray bob and jab their way through the record’s raucous rhythms. At times, Grip’s fat contrabass follows Thomas’ sax through singing melodies; at other times, his sound becomes transparent and fractured – it disintegrates into the rhythm of Gray’s flashes of percussive brilliance and then rises up again like a great whale bursting through the throbbing breaks of a musical ocean.

The music is dark and lyrical, reminiscent of the early free jazz, though assimilated with a very modern approach to improvisation; this is the key to the CORPULENT sound. The sincerity is evident in every note, rhythm, and articulation.

"While he's respected among jazz musicians for his forward thinking, the public's awareness of Thomas sadly remains low. Wolfwalk will hopefully change that. The new trio date walks the line between modern mainstream and free jazz, tilting more towards the latter. The seven original compositions, which almost blend into one fifty-minute extended piece, are characterized by the dark, brooding, searching sound of Thomas' saxophone, coupled with the beefy, full bass of Grip and the gentle explosions of Gray. Listening closely to one another, the three take the music where their impulses dictate—the outer, yet still accessible realms of jazz music. Wolfwalk is cutting edge. True jazz fans will find this music enlightening."

So, this young drummer Devin Gray comes to our shop and lays this fine disc on me and say to check it out. Surprising, since it includes M-Base sax great Gary Thomas who has been around for about twenty years with numerous discs out on JMT/W&W and Blue Note. I hadn't heard of either of these young rhythm team-mates before this. All three contribute compositions. Joel's "Gryphus Medley" is a 12 & 1/2 minute work that moves slowly and simmers nicely. This is a solid, strong trio that works together just right, perfectly balanced, powerful in places, laid back as well.

Gary Thomas is more often known for his muscular playing, yet here holds back and works with the trio righteously. Joel's rich and inspired contrabass is often at the center of this trio, his tone is quite mature well beyond his youthful years. The tune is well stretched out and builds in intensity as it evolves. Gary's "Who's in Control?" is more like his old stuff with a great, charted theme and some fine blustery sax over the tight rhythm team. In a similar vain is Joel's "Ingen Dalig Kappa Att Axla" with another well-written theme and the bass at the center of the story. Gary's warm tone is superb and assured throughout, often sounding like one of the older cats. An excellent session that many folks would find hard to believe that two of these fine musicians are so young.

A sense of humor is so lacking in jazz (and especially jazz writing) that when one does appear you almost don’t even know what to do with it. And the first thing you notice about Wolfwalk—the debut recording for this trio and the debut release for this label—is that, yes, right there on the cover, that is a photo of a scrawny white dude clutching two strips of uncooked bacon in front of his chest. OK . . .
The disarming insouciance continues on the recording. Seven tracks—two each from saxophonist Gary Thomas, bassist Joel Grip, and drummer Devin Gray, and one collective composition—swim through funky postbop (Thomas’ lithe “Who’s in Control?”), abstract canvases (Gray’s “Slow Bluuesss”), and buttery, fluttery ballads (Grip’s “Ingen Dalig Kappa Att Axla”). And Wolfwalk doesn’t suffer because of the wide palette.

Such a casual attitude pervades the entire recording and, you suspect, the recording session. Thomas is historically a muscular, courageous player willing to push both himself and extremes, and he hasn’t sounded so eager to play around the edges of straight-ahead jazz in years. His up and down cascades, darting runs, and witty figures play off and against the jittery drums and meandering bass in Gray’s “Used to Be (V+D),” which mines surprising joy out of three musicians exploring the same open-air park and only occasionally striding along the same path. A better group dynamic is forged on Grip’s “Gryphus Medley,” which might as well be an ecstatic, lurching march for a drunk wedding. Gray splashes around floor toms and cymbals as Thomas traces disappearing shadows through the air and Grip throws low-end frowns across the room until everybody finds the same knotty idea around which they wind themselves into a dizzying bad mood. And they’re still only two and a half minutes into this 12-minute workhorse, and Gray has yet to grow a third arm and bounce simultaneous snare rolls and high-hat chatter off Thomas’ serpentine runs and Grip’s quickened throb, which itself melts into that rarity of rarities: a bass solo you want to go on longer than it does.

Grip’s bass provides the spark that ignites Thomas’ stormy “Vanishing Time,” a smoldering setting for Thomas at his most economically eloquent. Grip and Gray mark a predatory pace, which picks up every so slightly as the track approaches its seven-and-a-half minute close, and Thomas steps right into the groove’s pocket and never leaves. It’s an emotionally lovely outing, recalling less the ardently intellectual players with whom Thomas is always associated and more the from-the-gut soulfulness of a Southern man like Wessell Anderson, Thomas playing with an earthy vibrato and rich, warm tone. It’s a classic-feeling song that doesn’t arrive with the past’s anachronistic dust when it hits the ears.

It’s probably a mistake to try and read too much into publicity shots of artists displayed on the inner casing of a CD, but the portraits of the three members of Corpulent accompanying their new release Wolfwalk seem to be silently signaling something to us. The two younger musicians—Swedish bassist Joel Grip and New England drummer Devin Gray—have both adopted wacky, light-hearted poses (with Gray even “hilariously” picking his nose). However, their somewhat older and more experienced colleague, saxophonist Gary Thomas—alumnus of Miles Davis’ mid-80s band and, more recently, Jack DeJohnette’s Special Edition—cuts a more dignified figure, enigmatically looking off into the distance with a stern expression on his face. You have to wonder, do these guys actually hang out?
And so it is with the music. Throughout this intelligent and varied set, Grip and Gray form a tight unit, reveling in the unpredictable and seeming to come from a predominantly improv stance—with all the humor and irreverence that suggests. Thomas, on the other hand, seems to be approaching these performances with a more strictly jazz-grounded style: authoritative, masculine, and serious. So, while the two juniors are busy sharing a joke behind his back, you almost feel like Thomas is going to break off from playing at any second and yell: “Will you two quit fooling around!”
Except… it works. “Slow Bluuesss” is, as the title suggests, an almost painfully languid and sparse 12-bar, with the bass and drums providing the very barest of bones on which to hang a tune. Thomas takes this skeleton and fleshes out the protruding ribs with dense and insistent sax runs, providing the muscle it needs to keep limping doggedly along.

In fact, it’s this dogged insistence that seems to characterize Thomas’ playing throughout the disc. His tone remains pretty much the same rugged macho tenor huffing from start to finish. There’s no showy overblowing, no skronking flights of excess, no mind-blowing feats of circular breathing. Thomas simply plays an honest horn. Unsurprisingly, he seems most at home on his own compositions, both of which display an appreciation of the groove: on “Who’s In Control?”, with its menacingly infectious descending bass riff, he comes over as a kind of heavy-lidded, street-gang Wayne Shorter, while “Vanishing Time”’s immovable modal swing gives him the chance to get really serious, his lines forming a somber prayer or admonishment to the wicked. It’s also worth noting that Gray and Grip get right inside these grooves, giving them a convincing heaviness—Gray’s drumming in particular is both driving and mercurial, providing just enough lift to keep things interesting.

Having said all that, the more exploratory pieces work well, too. Grip’s “Gryphus Medley” is a trade-off between free interplay and structured interludes, with solos falling naturally out of the turmoil—the crisp, understated drum solo unfolding from the group statement like a lingering mistake before leading beautifully into the closing theme. Similarly, “Used to Be (V+D)” starts out as a dislocated, quirky shuffle and somehow manages to maintain its momentum even after it has fractured into something far less coherent.

So, those photos are only telling half the story, as it happens. Yes, there’s tension here, there’s a disparity in styles, but the resulting clash of impulses makes for an interesting conversation rather than an uncomfortable encounter. As for the CD cover—I shudder to think what that’s trying to tell us. Bacon as stigmata? The corporeal immanence of streaky hog-products? The ascendancy of relic ‘n’ eggs? Holy Smoked!

Nobody asks you to take part in a revolution or overturn the status quo. I guess you just believe things should be different (maybe better?) and you jump in. Sometimes to your detriment, sometimes to glory. I’m not talking about the world trade talks, I speak of jazz revolutions, from swing to bebop, the “new thing,” fusion, and nu bop.
In the eighties, the response to Wynton Marsalis’ new conservatism (sorry, that wasn’t a revolution) brought about the rise of the Downtown scene and Brooklyn’s M-BASE collective. The M-BASE revolution included the likes of Cassandra Wilson, Greg Osby, and Gary Thomas. While Osby and Wilson have found a safe home back in “the tradition,” Thomas carries the flag forward, as evidenced by this new release from the band called Corpulent. The Baltimore-based saxophonist hooked up with drummer Devin Gray, a Peabody Conservatory student, and Swedish bassist Joel Grip. The result is a compelling set of forceful music.

The disc opens with the slow drag “Gryphus Medley,” a muscular workout for the trio to announce its presence. Thomas’ weighty saxophone sound is balanced against Grip’s deep bass groove. It’s refreshing to hear a bass mixed evenly in this manner. While Thomas is the star, Grip and Gray are given equal strong voices here.
Gray propels “Who’s In Control?” with Thomas and Grip walking lock-step with the drummer’s pulse. The two play a bit behind the pulse, and you can sense the music can/could take off in many alternative directions. That sense of possibilities is a constant theme on Wolfwalk. The players simmer constantly on the aptly named “Free Piece,” the slow burner “Used To Be (V+D),” and the compelling “Vanishing Time” that ends the disc, leaving you with a very satisfying groove.

www.jazzreview.com, Dr. Ana Isabel Ordonez