Milwaukee trumpeter-composer Jamie Breiwick is brimming with creative output of tidal proportions. His latest (unless something appears next week) is this often exquisitely crafted yet free-flowing work, with bassist Tim Ipsen.
Breiwick’s assured grasp of modern jazz tradition exploits this spare sonic palette with textural and expressive language via Don Cherry and Miles Davis. Yet his facility recalls the finest beboppers. It opens ambitiously with “Green Aesthetic,” a wistful yet questing theme that feels like, rather than from the head, playing from the ground up, with feet in the dirt, through the heart, to the horn. Ipsen’s bass resonates eloquently in restatement. “The Cilla Suite” seems to honor the sea through three episodic movements.
“All the Moons” beams with Breiwick’s innate lyricism evoking, for me, a Wisconsin fantasia, the cow jumps over “all the moons.” “Father Figure,” tonal and lovely, recalls Art Farmer’s luminous warmth. “Le Flume” translates aptly as “spectral random wave.” “Un Moment” encompasses three parts—free, spacious, and swinging, over Ipsen’s walking bass. “Rip Glass” ends it ingeniously with Breiwick on “water trumpet.” Burble-gurgle and quenched.
