David Bixler: incognito ergo sum
SS Records
Much like its album title riff on Descartes' famous dictum, the music New York-based saxophonist David Bixler makes with his trio incognito partners bassist Dan Loomis and percussionist Fabio Rojas is serious but playful too. On their second album together (2020's Inside the Grief the first), the three make good on the incognito ergo sum (“I am incognito, therefore I am”) title by downplaying individual ego for collective expression. Yet while Bixler, Loomis, and Rojas are equally pivotal to the trio's identity, the saxophonist's clearly the leader: he's credited as composer of all but two of the album's fourteen tracks, and he naturally shoulders the greater melodic load.
That said, the conversational flow the three engage in makes for compelling listening, so much so that the flexibility, agility, and spontaneity of this trio calls to mind no less a unit than Henry Threadgill's Air. There's ample satisfaction to be had from hearing Loomis and Rojas reply with imagination and invention to every move Bixler makes (witness, for example, how smoothly the trio transitions between slow and fast tempi during “what's at hand”). If his playing sounds assured, it should: he brings to the project decades of experience and has worked with figures as diverse as Lionel Hampton, Toshiko Akiyoshi, and Chico O'Farrill. Loomis and Rojas have impressive credits too, the bassist the leader of his own quartet and an in-demand sideman and Rojas a solo artist who's played with Greg Osby, Geri Allen, Lonnie Plaxico, and others.
Two additional things distinguish the release: first, the trio's penchant for ranging stylistically, with post-bop, balladry, free improv, folk, funk, and even a Scottish-styled dance surfacing along the way; and, second, an interesting set-list design that sees seven variations on a composition alternating with seven unrelated pieces. With each successive iteration, the title of that composition expands, such that “you” becomes “you are,” “you are ma,” and so on until the culminating “you're making me hate” arrives. In classic theme-and-variations fashion, each take uses the serpentine theme as a vehicle for stylistic adventure.
Listening attention's grabbed the moment “6.29.21” introduces its sing-song theme and the trio underlays it with a crisp funk groove. Earworms aren't that common in jazz, but the bluesy one grounding the opener definitely qualifies. The extemporization by Bixler that follows shows him to be an ever resourceful and imaginative player, fast on his feet and never at a loss for ideas. Much the same could be said for Loomis, who follows the saxophonist with his own pithy statement, and Rojas, who asserts himself with muscularity as the track winds down. Funk rears its head again in “recycled” though this time tinged with South American folk flavour.
Bixler switches between alto and soprano throughout, the latter used to define the geometric armature of “you,” animate the intensive slow-burn of “liminal space,” and guide the trio through its probing examination of the traditional “Johnny Cope.” The second non-original's an inspired choice too, a boppish, alto-led run-through of the endearing Kern-Hammerstein tune “Nobody Else But Me.” Truth be told, the album's a little longer than it needs to be and might have been better clocking in at twelve or even ten tracks. Still, as the free flight the trio gets up to in “you are making me” shows (one illustration of many), the interactions between the three are so engaging and the chemistry so strong, it's possible to overlook that detail.September 2025