Currently residing in Zurich, Switzerland, guitarist Travis Reuter spent many fruitful years as a leader and top-tier sideman in New York, playing with the Arturo O’Farrill Sextet, David Weiss & Point of Departure, Rajna Swaminathan, Jeremy Viner, Anna Webber, Rudy Royston, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) and a host of others. His 2012 debut Rotational Templates revealed a searching, advanced musical mind, a player with tremendous technique and imagination, dissecting original compositions in a quintet with guitar, tenor sax, electric piano, bass and drums.

Quintet Music, Reuter’s extraordinary follow-up, features a similar instrumentation, though with the vibraphone of Peter Schlamb in place of Rhodes. On tenor is the unheralded and always jaw-dropping Mark Shim, with sought-after bassist and leader Harish Raghavan and drummer (not to mention MacArthur-winning new music composer) Tyshawn Sorey constituting a dream rhythm section. The music breaks free of conventional forms and gestures, sending Reuter and the quintet on a journey through the densest of metrical and harmonic sequences. Present through all the complexity is the unvarnished sound of live interplay, an animating spirit drawn from modern jazz even when Reuter and the quintet starkly depart from it.

“We did one rehearsal, without Tyshawn,” Reuter recalls. “And then we did three days in the studio. I knew what Tyshawn was capable of, so I sent him the music in advance, and when he showed up to record, it was not a problem at all.” Far from it. Sorey doesn’t simply make it through this incredibly difficult music, he breathes it, inhabits it, as does Raghavan on bass. The guitar, tenor and vibes form an inviting sonic triad, each instrument getting its own “Interlude” somewhere in the program.

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LABEL: self-released

ALBUM: Quintet Music

RELEASE DATE: April 19, 2024

ARTIST LINKS:
Website

PERSONNEL:
Travis Reuter – guitar, composition
Mark Shim – tenor sax
Peter Schlamb – vibraphone
Harish Raghavan – bass
Tyshawn Sorey – drums