"Know what you should call that," smiles Kidd Jordan when the first track of On Fire 2 has concluded. His title, "Speaking in Tongues," and the disc's title are apt, as this trio seems to conjure as much as play, imbuing each gesture with the magic that only fire brings forth, the ever and never changing essence of improvisation itself.
There's something epic about every session in which Kidd Jordan is involved; like late Coltrane, he can build mammoth structures from seemingly simple material, such as the two motives that open "Speaking in Tongues." This nearly half-hour journey inaugurates the sequel to his 2012 Engine disc, and if such comparisons are necessary, the new disc is even better. The trio is firing on all proverbial cylinders, and their in-the-moment music making is indicative of the freshness that often comes when like-minded and open-spirited veterans improvise together.
The rapid-fire exchanges between Jordan and Harrison Bankhead are immediate and telepathic, a relationship that can be heard to even better advantage on the much briefer but equally poignant "Waves of Birds." There, the two players' mastery of registral interplay is astonishing, each an orchestra unto himself as rhythmic and melodic invention simply flow from fingers and through their respective instruments. As always, when Warren Smith is involved, the two longer tracks are taken to a whole new level. His approach to the drums is melodic, complementing Bankhead's spontaneous polyphony and Jordan's vast leaps from valley to peak and back again. Listen to Smith's metallic evocation as "Tongues" crackles to life, or his rim and snare dialogue with Bankhead's cello at the start of "Coming Down Blue," as Bankhead engages in a historical dialogue of his own, juxtaposing modal musings with a strong hint of Chicago blues rhetoric.
Beyond the multicultural and chronologically disparate sound-worlds these three masters create, there are my favorite moments, the moments of repose, like the point in "Coming Down Blue," where Smith's delicate cymbals and Bankhead's tender pizzicato pave the way for Jordan's entrance, a tremulous and heartbreaking reminder of his blues roots, the hard-won freedom his playing embodies, and the collaborators that support and nurture that freedom.
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