Over late 2019 and early 2020 the DBQ recorded their first album for 8 years.
Daimon Brunton
We have listened to this album innumerable times and we can assure you that this is something stellar! We have also scoured Spotify, Apple Music, You Tube and alike and we honestly can’t find anything that sounds quite like this. This is visceral, high energy, complex, time-shifting music that really demands the very best.
“The New Sound” is undoubtedly The Daimon Brunton Quintet’s most exciting and ambitious project to date. It is a collection of five works that were presented many times throughout 2019 and have now been recorded and released as a full-length album.
The works on “The New Sound” are designed to expand the niche audience of jazz by using strong melodies and ‘straight’ rhythms but they simultaneously explore and develop sophisticated compositional techniques.
Three of the five works are through-composed and explore the concept that themes that are strongly linked can hold the attention and captivate the listener and take them on a ‘journey’ without the use of a recurring riff or chorus.
One work uses a 4 bar melodic motif played on the trumpet as the basis and foundation for a virtuosic solo ‘conversation’ between guitar and keyboard. This gives the trumpet a role for which it has traditionally never been used. However the strongest elements that pervade “The New Sound” are those of counterpoint and metric modulation.
Daimon Brunton; the composer and trumpeter; spent 15 years playing pipe organ in church masses and studied Bach Preludes and Fugues and he has brought this highly contrapuntal compositional technique and employed it in a jazz/fusion setting.
Instead of slabs of chords and chord symbols four individual voices (bass, guitar, piano and trumpet) are often found playing four separate melodies simultaneously. This technique has certainly been employed in jazz and fusion before but never to the extent it is heard on the works in “The New Sound”. Daimon introduces each voice gradually, allowing the audience to identify with each melody before the next one is layered on top. The addition of each melody draws the audience in and takes them further on the ‘journey’. By the time four-fifths of the ensemble are playing separate melodies there is a crescendo and sophistication that then allows for countless possibilities whether that be a sudden ‘strip-back’ to just a groove or the possibility of transitioning to a whole new section of a through-composed work.
The use of metric modulation is also extensive in these works but Daimon feels strongly that such complexity should only be employed if the underlying ‘groove’ is strong. The ending of one work is a 7/4 section. Each 7/4 bar is actually the combination of two 7/8 bars whose pulse alternates between a 3-2-2 grouping and a 2-2-3 grouping. To the listener it feels like there is a medium paced loping or gait to the music but the shifting pulse that is the undercurrent for this passage brings a frenetic and contagious energy.
“The New Sound” is unique. It has incredibly strong ‘whistle-able’ melodies on top of funky fusion beats that attract a new audience to jazz whilst simultaneously employing sophisticated, new compositional techniques that add to the legacy of this wonderful art-music genre.
Personnel
- Daimon Brunton -Trumpet
- Adam Donaldson – Drums
- Adam Rudegeair – Keyboard
- Lawson Kennard – Bass
- David Gooey – Guitar