(Free Jazz, Avant-Garde Jazz) The Nu Band (Roy Campbell Jr., Mark Whitecage, Joe Fonda, Lou Grassi) - Lower East Side Blues - 2008, FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

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One of the best free bop bands of the moment is without a doubt The Nu Band, with four seasoned musicians who are as comfortable in the most complex jazz traditions as in the adventurous sonic explorations of nowadays, mixing them with rhythm, soul, spirituality, a deep-felt sympathy for humanity, a strong dose of political criticism, joined with humor and self-relativation. The Nu Band is Mark Whitecage on sax and clarinet, Roy Campbell on trumpet, Joe Fonda on bass and Lou Grassi on drums. The album starts with the boppish title track, in hommage to the place where Charlie Parker lived and worked, with a strong bass vamp and a nice theme, a great springboard for the musicians to start their respective solos from. The second track is more ambitious, penned by Joe Fonda for Mark Whitecage, and called "In A Whitecage", a slow exploratory piece offering both horn-players a framework to interweave their solos, moving in and out of the theme, moving from unison to echoing each other to different phrases to full separate improvisation, with a long bass solo by Fonda making the bridge to "The Path", the piece's second part, which is equally sensitive, but much sweeter. "Connecticut Solution", has a more middle-eastern rhythmic feel, an environment in which Campbell feels extremely comfortable for his slow bluesy, stretched, muted notes, so deeply felt that it gives me the goosebumps. While Whitecage and Fonda perform strong solos, Grassi's percussive power throughout this piece is stunning : economical and rich, creating a wonderful synergetic feel with the repetitive bass-line, and especially during Fonda's solo. Grassi's compositions for "Drunk Butterfly", "The Last Of The Beboppers", gets its cover here too, and so does his much older song "Avanti Galoppi", which was already covered on several previous releases but still maintains its great forward-propulsing rhythmic drive, the rhythm section quadruple-timing the piece's slow theme, a challenge for the horns to keep the slowness going, a delight for Fonda who clearly enjoys the speed, then almost brings it to a standstill during his own solo, only to get the galopping speed back up for the finale. "Heavenly Ascending" is again a slow, march-like piece, with Fonda's arco leading the way into a soulful and heartfelt suite ranging from very open-ended moments, to joyful unison phrases, wildly chaotic interactions, but ending again with the serene arco. This album will not change your life, nor will it alter music history, but it will offer you all the musical joy you can expect from great music and wonderful musicians: it is rich, soulful, spiritual, fun, varied, expressive, moving, elevating .... Highly recommended.
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To those who thought The Nu Band was a one-shot group, witness Lower East Side Blues, its fourth album since 2003 and first recorded in a studio. With such busy schedules it seemed as if four musicians of this caliber—trumpeter Roy Campbell, alto saxophonist/ clarinetist Mark Whitecage, bassist Joe Fonda and drummer Lou Grassi—couldn't stay together very long. That they now have several international tours behind them and have a burgeoning discography is an indication of their level of commitment.
They run the band like a co-operative with each member contributing compositions. These are well chosen and tend to play to the strengths of the individuals, even if they weren't originally written specifically for the group. Campbell's title track opens the proceedings with a smartly bopping head, kept afloat by Grassi with an Ed Blackwell-like buoyancy that allows Campbell and Whitecage to fly over the changes with ease. The Fonda composition "In A Whitecage" highlights its dedicatee's clarinet work, it's matched beautifully by Campbell's smoky muted trumpet. Incidentally, Campbell uses the mute extensively on this disc and to great advantage. Whitecage's "Connecticut Solution" emphasizes the entire group with its closely harmonized mysterioso theme and lopsided 5/4 gait. Grassi's "Avanti Galoppi" chugs along on Fonda's ostinato pattern and demonstrates his driving contributions to the band. Having the horns play the theme in half-time over the double-time of the rhythm section creates a nice tension.
The Nu Band sounds like four musicians who genuinely enjoy playing together. And Lower East Side Blues has all of the heat, drama and high-quality improvising that makes a jazz recording worth hearing.
By ROBERT IANNAPOLLO

Roy Campbell Jr. - trumpet, pocket trumpet, flugelhorn
Mark Whitecage - alto sax, clarinet
Joe Fonda - bass
Lou Grassi - drums, percussion