By Nick Ostrum

Paul Dunmall is a tricky musician to maintain up with. Since 2010, he has
launched 86 albums (in line with Discogs.com), and I’m sure that leaves
out variety of reside digital-only releases. What retains him attention-grabbing
isn’t just his uncooked creativity and expertise however his relentless stream of
collaborations, particularly inside the British scene. Many of those are with
the same old luminaries: John Edwards, Marc Sanders, Phillp Gibbs, Paul Rogers.
He additionally, nevertheless, has a penchant for sharing the stage with musicians from
later generations. That brings us to

Vibrant Mild A Joyous Celebration, on which Dunmall is joined not solely by the venerable Hamid Drake, however
additionally youthful musicians comparable to vibist Corey Mwamba (who admittedly is
already a family identify for a lot of), reedsmen Soweto Kinch and Xhosa Cole
and bassist Dave Kane.

Sufficient digital ink has been spilled relating to Dunmall’s enjoying over the
years. He has impeccable tone. He’s a figurehead for an necessary stream
that developed out of early vitality music. He writes extremely catchy
melodies. (4 out of 5 tracks on

Vibrant Mild A Joyous Celebration

are penned by the person, himself.) He performs with, reasonably than in entrance of,
his collaborators, serving to to elevate them whereas they preserve him on his toes.
Collectively, they preserve the music recent and shifting. As a lot as every other
venture of Dunmall, that is one captures a unit reasonably than a frontrunner and his
band. Mwamba shines, particularly on the introductory observe, You Look Away,
about 8 minutes into which he engages in a formidable jangly run, buoyed
by Kane’s teetering strut. It might typically be a problem to disaggregate
which tenor is enjoying when, however, due to that, I can say with
confidence that Kinch and Cole have chops. They will toe as much as Dunmall,
dance round his snake-charmer soprano, maintain their personal courtroom periods, and
harness that early free jazz spirit that imbues this music, irrespective of how
modern it’s. Kane and Drake, the latter not solely one of the
exact drummers round but additionally one of many rhythmic, type an hermetic
rhythm part, particularly when Mwamba provides his intermittent intercessions.
That pulsing drive outcomes varied prolonged durations of riveting grooves,
particularly within the sole collective composition I’ve Had A Lot. By the point
one will get by means of the tip of the ultimate and titular observe, Vibrant Mild A
Joyous Celebration, one other free bop beast, nevertheless, the listener would possibly
justifiably query why the celebration needed to come to an finish. Definitely,
they’ve heard quite a bit by this level. Whether or not quite a bit is sufficient, nevertheless, is
one other query altogether.

A Vibrant Joyous Celebration is obtainable as a CD and obtain on Bandcamp.