Reflecting on his guiding artistic impulse, Kirk Knuffke says: “I’m concerned with making beautiful music. Even when the music is free and avant-garde, I want it to reach into people’s hearts. I like to play fast and loud and high, but beauty is always first, though not in a precious way. It can be in a rough way, too.” A prolific, lauded record-maker, the cornetist has made some 20 albums as a leader or co-leader over the past two decades; Gravity Without Airs – to be released digitally and on 2CD & 2LP by TAO Forms on July 1, 2022 – fulfills his poetic aims as well as any recording he has made. This double album finds Knuffke in the rare, even unique, trio format of cornet, piano and double-bass. His partners are two ever-estimable pillars of creative music, and the work they’ve created together here brims with melody and mystery, intimacy and dynamism.

Gravity Without Airs is Kirk’s debut as a leader for TAO Forms. It follows on his elemental contribution to Jesup Wagon (TAO 05) by James Brandon Lewis’ Red Lily Quintet, which was one of the most acclaimed jazz releases of 2021 – securing the coveted top spot in both the JazzTimes year-end Critics Poll and the international Jazz Critics Poll established by Francis Davis. Accolades for the cornetist’s recent work as a leader include NPR’s Jazz Album of the Year laurel for 2017’s Cherryco, his homage to Don Cherry, ace of the pocket trumpet and a prime influence. DownBeat praised the way that album showcased Knuffke’s “nonchalant versatility and ebullient melodic gifts,” while longtime Village Voice critic Francis Davis called Cherryco “nothing short of spectacular.” Davis also wrote the liner notes for Gravity.., noting the allure of Knuffke’s instrumental aplomb: “Kirk plays as if his cornet is a part of him – he plays with it, not just on it.”

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LABEL: TAO Forms

ALBUM: Gravity Without Airs

RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2022

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