Jennifer Wharton’s Bonegasm – Grit & Grace
(Sunnyside Data. Overview by John Ferguson)

A brand new jazz album recorded on the iconic Energy Station studios in New York in Could this 12 months, with eight top-class musicians performing ten primarily model new items by eight totally different composers, but there’s not a saxophone, nor a guitar to be heard! Jennifer Wharton’s album ‘Grit & Grace’ demonstrates the fantastic variety of jazz, together with her trombone-fronted ensemble Bonegasm performing particularly commissioned items by main modern composers, who – not coincidentally – additionally occur to be ladies.

The title Wharton selected for this album is taken from a 2019 Forbes Journal article that decreed that the 2 traits ladies want most to thrive within the enterprise world are “grit and style” – a sign of the undoubted strategy Wharton has needed to take at instances, in her profession as knowledgeable bass trombonist.

Wharton herself wrote three items for this third album by her outfit Bonegasm and so they sit completely alongside compositions by such modern luminaries as Nadje Noordhuis and rising star conductor/composer Miho Hazama (whose new album ‘m unit: Past Orbits’ launched final month on Version Data, is one other really useful hear).

What is instantly putting in regards to the album are the constantly melodic tunes and the lightness of the general really feel, regardless of a brass-laden frontline of three trombonists – John Fedchock, Nate Mayland and Alan Ferber – plus Wharton’s personal bass trombone making up half of the ensemble. Michael Eckroth’s piano helps to stress the robust melodies inherent in all the compositions, whether or not that be the Brazilian flavour of Natalie Cressman’s ‘Menina Sozinha’, Vanessa Perica’s lament ‘In Our Darkest Hour’ (with particular hints of Maria Schneider, no unhealthy factor to those ears), Hazama’s heavier ‘Norhala’, or the Frida Kahlo-linked people melodies of ‘La Bruja’. Bassist is Evan Gregor, drummer Don Peretz with percussionist Samuel Torres on some tracks.

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The absence of what is perhaps termed ‘conventional’ jazz frontline devices, is at no time a hindrance. The extra orthodox rhythm part of piano, bass, drums and percussion, retains issues firmly within the jazz area, while the trombonists every impress, whether or not working in concord as a brass part or as solo improvisers throughout the totally different tracks. Properly executed Jennifer Wharton and group!

Writer John Ferguson co-promotes stay music at SoundCellar in Poole (www.soundcellar.org)

‘Grit & Grace’ is released on Sunnyside Data as we speak, 20 October 2023 – Bandcamp