Christian Dillingham: As It Relates To Now
Shifting Paradigm Records

Christian Dillingham isn't the first jazz artist to translate feelings about social and political events into musical expression, with Charlie Haden, Max Roach, John Coltrane, and Charles Mingus but a sampling of others who've done the same. Whether it be “Alabama” or "Fables of Faubus,” the genre's leading figures have consistently addressed critical moments through their art. Dillingham doesn't hector the listener with shrill diatribes and take-downs; instead, the Chicago-based double bassist references them through an inner sleeve statement, track titles, and the heat of his trio's instrumental performances.

In that statement, he describes the current climate in his home country as one marked by “social tension and moral uncertainty, shaped in part by policies introduced during the Trump administration beginning in 2025.” The writing of the new album's eight compositions became for him a way of channeling feelings of frustration, urgency, and helplessness, the implication being that the music would invite reflection, offer some degree of catharsis for artist and listener alike, and even perhaps incite change. Certainly the power of Dillingham's own playing plus that of his well-chosen partners, alto saxophonist Greg Ward and drummer Jeremy Cunningham goes a long way towards addressing this critical time in musical form.

As It Relates To Now is the trio's debut recording, but the three have played together in various configurations and contexts for years and thus share a strong foundation. Each is a versatile player and quick to adapt to pieces that veer in multiple directions, from bop and blues to rock. The leader's credentials speak for themselves, with Dillingham well-established in the Chicago jazz scene but also a multifaceted player comfortable playing with the Chicago Sinfonietta and Chicago Philharmonic.

If the forty-five-minute album engages on thematic grounds, it does even more musically, especially when it kicks off with the infectious title track, as rocking a statement as the album contains. As a tight and punchy groove's laid down by the bassist and drummer, Ward wails terrifically just as he does throughout the set—wait for the soulfulness of his attack when his solo moment arrives. Dillingham's first time in the spotlight shows his unerring mastery of pulse, while Cunningham displays invention without ever losing the driving feel.

Many a track naturally features Ward shouldering the melodic load, but the bassist also brings interesting twists to the trio format. Hear, for example, how arrestingly he and Ward open “Special Relativity” with an expertly delivered unison episode before the piece segues into a swinging midtempo statement replete with walking bass lines. The two periodically regroup to revisit the intro, but otherwise the trio engages in a looser explorative attack, Dillingham holding things down and his colleagues thus able to extemporize freely and trade-off. The brooding, dirge-like “Behind the Horizon” likewise catches the ear when it pairs the drummer's cymbal and tom-tom flourishes with, again, unison expressions of alto sax and bowed bass. The trio also makes room on the set for a ballad treatment with the sultry reflection “If They Knew.”

Elsewhere, the bassist honours Chicago's Woodlawn neighbourhood with "Wooden Lawns,” an ever-mobile and slippery exercise slathered in soul and funk, thanks to Ward's inspired acrobatics, a hot-wired turn by Dillingham, and Cunningham's fast-on-his-feet rhythmning. Things turn boppish for “Delusional Grandeur,” a composition one imagines could easily have snuck into the set-list of an early Ornette Coleman release.

It's worth noting that while thematically there is a dark dimension to As It Relates To Now, the release isn't depressing but simply honest in acknowledging the current state of things. But for Dillingham, resilience is as important as any other response, and just as those aforementioned jazz figures hoped to facilitate change through their statements, in his own way the bassist's hoping to do the same. After all, identifying a problem is the first step towards solving it.

August 2026