Chris Potter Unspoken

Chris Potter's quartet Underground should be looked upon as one of the many facets in the saxophonist's prismatic view of contemporary jazz. Certainly the band is oriented toward a progressive jazz image with the electric guitar work of the brilliant Adam Rogers and Craig Taborn's witty and pungent Fender Rhodes keyboard. Assumedly the concept of Underground harks somewhat to the fusion of Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, and Chick Corea. But Potter's vision with this combo goes beyond those static and funkier values, entering a wilder, unabashed, and fierce aggression that cannot be corralled. In live performance at the storied Village Vanguard nightclub in Greenwich Village, you expect and receive long drawn-out compositions, extended solos especially from Potter, and new music tried out as audience experiments.

“The Sirens” is acclaimed saxophonist Chris Potter’s ECM debut as a leader, an album of mood and melody inspired by The Odyssey – both its epic atmosphere and its timeless humanity. Potter – who has featured on many ECM albums by Dave Holland and Steve Swallow, as well as making a profound contribution to the contemporary classic “Lost in a Dream” with Paul Motian and Jason Moran – has composed a cycle of irresistible songs without words. These pieces are conveyed by a subtly virtuosic, strikingly textured band: with Potter on tenor and soprano saxophones and bass clarinet, plus Craig Taborn (piano), David Virelles (prepared piano, celeste, harmonium), Larry Grenadier (double bass) and Eric Harland (drums). Potter declaims lyrical lines over the dynamically inventive rhythm section, as colouristic keyboards shimmer like stars in the night sky.

For his third ECM release as a leader, Chris Potter presents a new acoustic quartet that naturally blends melodic rhapsody with rhythmic muscle. The group includes superlative musicians well known to followers of ECM’s many recordings from New York over the past decade: keyboardist David Virelles, bassist Joe Martin and drummer Marcus Gilmore, who each shine in addition to the leader on multiple horns. The Dreamer Is the Dream features Potter on tenor saxophone the instrument that has made him one of the most admired players of his generation in the striking opener “Heart in Hand” and such album highlights as “Yasodhara,” as well as on soprano sax (“Memory and Desire”) and bass clarinet (the title track).

The international supergroup featuring Dave Holland, Zakir Hussain and Chris Potter, collectively known as the Crosscurrents Trio, are set to release the new album Good Hope on 11th October on British label, Edition Records.