Ellery Eskelin, Andrea Parkins & Jim Black
One Great Day...

★★★★

A trio of the most unusual composition. A breaching whale of a saxophone, an almost math rock sounding drummer, and a "everything but the kitchen sink" accordionist. These three work in such a cohesive manner that it seems like they almost have a neural network. 

There are certain times where Eskelin goes off onto his own tangent, and it works well but when they're all swinging with each other it close to perfect. Even for a live performance the quality is exceptionally good and the flexibility of each player is shown to work outside of the studio. 

The first two tracks, especially "Vertical Hold", seem to contain a luscious and tasteful hook that is soulful and sweet like molasses. On "T64k37b", the trio experiments with some Braxton like phrases and Black's rumbling drums. This all leads to the climax, "Too Much Orange", which combines everything from Xenakis-like insect sounds to folk songs to Pollock like drip drumming. 

The album rides this high tide all the way through to the end, especially on the amazing cover of "The Inflated Tear". Which is transformed partly into a zoned out ambient piece within a piece. All in all, this was exciting and I'm looking forward to listening to their other collaborative albums. 

Favorite Song: Too Much Orange

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