Your Brother's Keeper & Gary Bartz - Where Rivers Meet

n 2019, Gilles Peterson asked London-based jazz drummer/producer Jake Long to assemble a band to back American saxophonist Gary Bartz at the first We Out Here Festival. He chose Maisha, his forward-thinking electric jazz and improv group. Following the wildly successful show, the parties booked a recording studio to deliver the raw, darkly vibrant Night Dreamer Direct-To-Disc Sessions. Long's 2020s project is Your Brother's Keeper. It consists of himself on drums with Maisha veterans Ali MacSween on piano, electronics, and modular EFX, trumpeter Axel Kaner-Lidstrom, double bassist Twm Dylan, percussionist Tim Doyle and top-flight saxophonist Chelsea Carmichael. While collective interplay and improvisation are central tenets in this record's purpose, it's not an exercise in a young band "jamming" with a famed soloist, but an exploratory, intensely focused, 21st century jazz encounter.

The set opens with first single "Cauldron" offering Bartz's subtly live processed alto via unintrusive modular synths. MacSween creates droning, breathing chord voicings in support. The saxophonist's solo is exploratory, melding space and groove, as drums, percussion, and bass cook from underneath. They become more aggressive as Kaner-Lidstrom solos then joins Bartz and Carmichael's vamp to carry it home. Second single "Ground Loop" is introduced with a slow, bluesy, trance-like feel via Long's hypnotic shuffle, hand percussion, and Dylan's pulsing double bassline. The spectral lyric vamp is delivered by horns before Kaner-Lidstrom takes an imaginative solo. The layers of drone, reverb, and modular EFX are integral to this composition's architecture; they carve out then balance space, texture, and harmonic invention. The modal "Eclipse" is introduced by a bass drone atop layered effects. Bartz answers with circular breathing on alto as Carmichael's delivers a sophisticated, emotionally resonant tenor solo. "Solar Flare" is introduced by Long playing a short solo that gives way to a popping rhythm track carried by percussion, bass, and electronics. When the horns enter, they are nearly mournful before a sequencer ratchets the sonic intensity. Following Kaner-Lidstrom's gorgeous solo, the electronics become cinematically intense before winding down and whispering it to a close. "Locris" is a rhythm orgy filtered through soundscapes, and a thrumming, yet elastic bass vamp. MacSween's modal piano adds depth and dimension to the groove before Carmichael's solo then Bartz spark in elaborate improvisation. "Mantra" is a tender, spiritual exercise that closes the seven-track album. MacSween's piano and atmospheric electronics alongside Long's kit, horns, and Dylan's lyrical bass vamp, create a soft modal frame for Bartz. He follows inside the changes and draws them out into gorgeous, open harmonic conversation with intensely melodic, deeply soulful articulation in a lengthy solo. The horn section becomes a gospel chorus as they soar around him, amid sweeping electronics in the backdrop, and Kaner-Lidstrom and Carmichael improvise over the lithe vamp. It's transcendent. Where Rivers Meet is a stunning creative collaboration. The octogenarian Bartz and generations-younger Your Brother's Keeper carve out a space that asserts collaborative creation in a nearly limitless musical dialogue that will edify and delight listeners. 

Thom Jurek ~ AllMusicGuide

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