The pianist Giovanni Guidi’s musical partnership with the bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer João Lobo now stretches back more than a decade, with the frequent Enrico Rava collaborator emerging alongside the contrapuntal bass of Morgan and the soft-brushed percussion of Lobo on the 2013 album City of Broken Dreams, his first as a leader for ECM.
Remaining on the label, his 2019 effort Avec le temps swelled in the middle section through the addition of Franceso Bearzatti on the tenor saxophone and Roberto Cecchetto on guitar, yet for his latest release Guidi felt that a more fixed association with James Brandon Lewis could help the group dialogue develop towards ‘more abstract, open and improvisational approaches’. With this fresh gaze A New Day opens through a rendition of ‘Cantos del Ocells’, the traditional Catalan Christmas song which was made famous by the cellist Pablo Casals and in turn by the folk singer Joan Baez on her 1966 record Noël. After a careful introduction the trio are joined by Lewis, who sublimates the beefier approach of his recent uptake with The Messthetics through suspended smears of saxophone which waft alongside piano arpeggios, rumbling percussion and limber bass.
With a background in gospel music before his turn to jazz wrought such fine albums as Jesup Wagon, his critically acclaimed tribute to the agricultural scientist George Washington Carver, and For Mahalia, With Love which he described as a three-way conversation between the gospel icon Mahalia Jackson, his grandmother and himself, both of which were performed by his Red Lily Quintet, while his quartet’s fourth album Transfiguration swung into view earlier this year, James Brandon Lewis is more than adept at changing things up and choosing his moment.
He appears on four of the tracks from A New Day, with his tone on the tenor becoming a little more soulful and strident following the burnished and plaintive notes of ‘Cantos del Ocells’ where he plays at some remove from the scattered plunk of Lobo’s drums and Morgan’s dexterous, tensile bass, evoking especially on ‘Only Sometimes’ and ‘Wonderland’ the manner of two spiritual forebears in Charles Lloyd and John Coltrane.
Playing with tender restraint as a trio, on ‘To A Young Student’ the bowed groans and stretches of Morgan’s bass stand out over the trills and tremolos of Guidi’s keys, while after a watery opening preparation ‘Means For A Rescue’ builds tentatively with Lobo’s percussion striking the time like an old and unruly grandfather clock, as piano and bass circle one another warily.
Improvised by the quartet on an album which otherwise features five Guidi originals and one standard, ‘Only Sometimes’ is more bluesy and gospel-flecked, beginning with what is effectively a long bass solo furnished by the odd drum roll and cymbal patter then briefly interrupted by a winding melody on the keys, before from the halfway point the piece foregrounds Lewis on the sax as he offers a raindrops-on-windowpane perspective, shifting modes and stirring elegies as the keys and sticks grope to keep up with his flurries.
‘Luigi (The Boy Who Lost His Name)’ maintains the sombre and even somewhat lugubrious but nevertheless refined and restrained atmosphere, with an even balance between the percussive spurts, shimmering keys and tilting bass before Lewis comes in as the others pick up the tempo. Showing the group’s penchant for subtle rubato, in the closing moments of the track they seem to slough off any lingering air of resignation, opening up a pathway ahead.
Then an ardent rendition of ‘My Funny Valentine’ plays with the harmony of the show tune by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, inventive and romantic, offering no fireworks but a steady kindling of the fire. There’s a strange rasping and rickety end to the track, before A New Day closes with a luscious ‘Wonderland’ where the tenor saxophone gains lustre, building up to a whinnying run in the second half as the percussion resonates and Guidi’s piano imbues the piece with a verdant glow.
