Drummer Jim Black has one of the most immediately recognizable styles in jazz—his wonderfully unhinged playing bears the mark of the rock backbeat, but he makes it special with a clanking, disruptive quality that forces his collaborators to heighten their reflexes. I first heard him as the infectiously sputtering engine behind Tim Berne’s fantastic quartet Bloodcount, but Black’s roots reach back to Seattle, where in 1987 he cofounded Human Feel with reedists Chris Speed and Andrew D’Angelo and guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel. Black has maintained an especially fruitful relationship with Speed, not just in the reactivated Human Feel but also in the reedist’s old band Yeah No, his more recent Endangered Blood, the Eastern European-influenced collective Pachora, and the drummer’s own Alasnoaxis.
Below you can hear one of the more extroverted pieces, “Song H,” where Black’s off-kilter funk and love of clank are complemented by Stemeseder’s skillful manipulation inside the piano, with a mix of preparations and spontaneous tinkering that produces muted and distorted tones. Eventually the piece settles into a calming midtempo groove, but the drummer’s accents and out-of-time feel provide a wonderful tension that never recedes.The Constant by Jim Black Trio with Elias Stemeseder and Thomas MorganToday’s playlist:
