CD Review: Jacob Varmus: Terminal Stillness.

Jacob Varmus (tpt/keys); Kris Davis (pno); Nate Radley (gtr); Jacob Garchik (acc); Ike Sturm or Gil Smuskowitz (bs); Brian Woodruff (dms/glock).

(Review by Lance)

For some unknown reason I keep shuffling this one down to the bottom of the pile of review CDs that are threatening to takeover house and home. I shouldn't do this because Terminal Stillness is a far better CD than some of those discs that are further up the pecking order.

There is an almost winsome appeal about it yet Varmus' long drawn out passages have an appeal that easily outstrips the similar minimalist approach of some other of his better known trumpet contemporaries.

The tone is full and the melodic and harmonic content of his solos have a laid back feel to it. I hear suggestions of Kenny Dorham, Red Rodney or middle period Miles. Radley and Davis.provide solo work that fully complements the leader.

Terminal Stillness is, I quote, a suite-based recording stimulated by the dimensions of  silence/inactivity and space. It is the result of searching for an autonymic term for perpetual motion.

Varmus states that "What I found in organising the suite is that music and activity in music are unsuppressable and that thusly the two terms are not so much in opposition to each other as one and the same." 

Make of that what you will. Personally I suggest that you stop furrowing your brow, scratching your head and enjoy the music. Stylistically? File it as "Post, Post Bop"!

It won't be my Album of the Year but it won't be the Lanterne Rouge either.

Lance.

PS: Listen also to Varmus' piano solo on the final track, Before Dawn.

Jacob Varmus: Terminal Stillness is now available on the Crows' Kin Recording Co. label.

More info www.jacobvarmus.com