Koch Records
2008
The Irrational Numbers
About This Album
Drew Gress was wise to reassemble the group that assisted him in realizing 2005's 7 Black Butterflies. In alto saxophonist Tim Berne, trumpeter Ralph Alessi, pianist Craig Taborn, and drummer Tom Rainey, the virtuoso double bassist and composer had a ready-made ensemble whose members, thanks to extensive touring since the last album, already understood one another intuitively. Outside of this configuration they each also boasted a towering list of additional credentials -- experience that, once the players met up again, easily enabled them to push Gress' compositions beyond his blueprints into unexpected and surprising places. Gress can be among the most aggressive of jazz-informed bassists around (perhaps he should call an album "Ag-gress-ion"), but he can also be a sweetie, tempering that eagerness to get fired up by cherishing melodicism and form. On tracks like "Chevelle" and the 12-and-a-half-minute "Neopolitan" (whether Neapolitan is deliberately misspelled is unknown, but there is an undeniable neo-ness to the track), the musicians sometimes teeter on the edge of atonality. At times they cross that edge into a place bordering on craziness and chaos (electronics supplied by Gress and deft production touches by David Torn help send it in that direction).
Track List (try tracks 2,3,4,6,7 and 8)

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