The Jason Klobnak Quintet - New Chapter (2015)

Tracklist

01. Today's Forecast: Sunny, High of 80 Degrees and a Chance of Snow
02. Breaking Point
03. Awe
04. New Chapter
05. Stay in the Game
06. Forward
07. Maybe Next Time
08. For Them
09. It Won't Return Void
10. The Other Side of Circumstances
11. Wait... What?

This is the second album from Colorado’s Jason Klobnak Quintet, twenty-some months following the release of the JKQ’s very auspicious opening salvo Mountain, Move. In the time elapsed since then some key components of the band have changed: a bassist moved to the Big Apple, a keyboardist answered the call of our Uncle Sam. However, much has remained largely constant - chiefly the bandleader himself. This Klobnak is the same trumpeter-composer from 2013, only two years more mature, two good strides closer to capturing the elusive Self through creativity. Not much of one for fireworks and revolutionary posture, this guy’s more a thinker, a worker. Generous to his well-chosen friends. Likes things kept tidy. Probably plots carefully the route to his destinations but still thoroughly enjoys the journey. Honestly, I’m just supposing here - Jason and I don’t actually know one another socially very well. But this is Jazz, and a good player or writer or arranger will clearly express to the listener their spirit through the music, and Jason Klobnak is a real good Jazz musician. His trumpet flights manage to excite without many departures from the instrument’s middle register and the compositions prepared for this project gel together on multiple levels, oftentimes breezing melodically above but all business below decks in the engine room. Throughout there’s a steady sense of determination, optimism, congeniality and that certain bump which readily identifies this musical strain as early twenty-first century Jazz music, a deep-rooted varietal.

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