Gene Ess: Ah-Bop
SIMP Records

Remove the CD from the inner sleeve of Ah-Bop and a list of other SIMP recordings by guitarist Gene Ess appears, the display all the more enticing for identifying the personnel on each project and Thana Alexa, Donny McCaslin, Ravi Coltrane, and Rashied Ali a sampling of the artists involved. For his first album in four years, however, Ess strips things down to a trio, thereby opening up space and enabling his prowess on the guitar to be all the better appreciated. Despite having issued many albums, Ah-Bop is actually the first time he's tackled the guitar-bass-and-drums format and thus sees him adding to a trio tradition established by Jim Hall, Pat Martino, John McLaughlin, Wes Montgomery, Grant Green, and others. By Ess's own admission, the format is daunting in the way it exposes the guitar so nakedly.

The drum chair's held by Clarence Penn, a longtime associate who's been with Ess for more than a decade. As the playing on the release shows, the two have forged a deep connection, with Penn responding to the music's flow and punctuating it boldly when not commenting understatedly. The bassist is Scott Colley, who played with Ess on his first European tour in the mid-‘90s and enhances the new album with an authoritative and tasteful attack. As key as their contributions are, Ah-Bop is very much Ess's baby, as he's credited as the composer of all eight cuts and album producer.

He conceived the album, recorded over two days in November 2021 at Brooklyn's Bunker Studio, as a kind of song cycle of the type associated with classical composers such as Schubert and Mahler. For the guitarist, the idea in its basic form involves achieving unity through the use of variations and motives. In the case of Ah-Bop, unity is bolstered by the recurring presence of the trio, variation in the contrasts of character that emerge between the eight parts. Whereas one track opts for a ballad-styled dynamic, another's scalding in featuring a heavier attack by the leader.

True to its name, the title track bolts from the gate with a bright bop swing, the theme a tad Monkish and simple enough to provide a smooth transition into the soloing. Ess moves fluidly through the changes, a resolutely swinging Penn shadowing him attentively, and Colley driving the three with an unwavering pulse. One comes away from the performance impressed with the agility of the trio and the ease with which they interact—players clearly comfortable with one another. The 3/4 time signature immediately distances “Waltz” from the opener, the subtly Latin-tinged tune marked by a characteristically probing solo from Colley and a breezy, untethered feel. Melancholy by comparison is “Yuki,” a slow and pensive meditation that's suitably wintry for a track whose title means snow in Japan. To his credit, Ess voices the tune's solemn melody sans embellishment, the choice all the better for maximizing the eloquence of the expression. The shift to a math rock style for “Array” comes as a surprise, as does the distortion of the guitar's sound; however disconcerting the change from the lyricism of “Yuki” to the rawness of “Array” is, it at least shows the range and versatility of the trio. That track notwithstanding, Ess generally favours a dulcet tone and a smooth, legato delivery.

November 2022