“Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?” So ends Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. Trombonist Samuel Blaser is no longer the invisible man of jazz. This Swiss bandleader is among various low brass players emerging from the musical underground. The band rises like troubled seabed creatures. Blaser concocts a virtual multiphonic language of bulbous burbles, growls and wah-wahs. Marc Ducret’s predatory guitar slashes like sharks and stingrays. Yet the music swings, then rocks ferociously, defiantly. This four-part survivor’s suite rides wary lyrical waves. As the sea, so goes human life?
Samuel Blaser Quartet
As the Sea (hatOLOGY)
