Lopez Trio - Matanzas (2023)

Brandon Lopez (contrabass), Steve Baczkowski (saxophones), and Gerald Cleaver (percussion) freely play propulsive grooves drawing as much from heavy metal aggression as free jazz freakouts. Baczkowski’s reeds with their acoustic distortions impart a crunch to the music and their snaking lines dance over the sinister and doomed romp of the rhythm section. Lopez and Cleaver are most often locked into a martial groove, assembled and disassembled, sometimes faltering and reeling from their own displays of low end power, aggressive not in tempo or even volume but heavy force and presence, the physicality of gestures revealed in Brandon Lopez’ voicings like exhalations. Cleaver might play variations on the same rhythm, freely shifting from its plodding beat to dizzying Hecatoncheires frenzies.