Here’s justification for putting out a CD on one’s own do-it-yourself label. The Westerlies consists of two trumpeters and two trombonists, who play new music with a winning combination of detailed precision and unfettered joy. Listen to their spot-on rhythmic control and dynamic calibrations throughout the title track; I actually find this brass arrangement of Nico Muhly’s piano piece Move more interesting than the original keyboard scoring. Likewise, the chorale sequences and hocketing detaché passages in Caroline Shaw’s En’tracte convey more vivacity and bite than in this work’s string quartet incarnation.
Mason Bynes’ For Rosa is delightfully melodic and jazzy, abounding with catchy syncopated rhythmic hooks that could well have stepped out of a vintage 1960s Herb Alpert/Tijuana Brass album. Trombonist member Andy Clausen’s triptych This Is Water proves to be this disc’s most stylistically wide ranging and unpredictable work. The first-movement Carmel features staccato outbursts punctuating Flamenco-like phrases that later blossom into rapid unison trumpet fireworks. In the second-movement Lopez, long sustained phrases soon give way to evocations of waltzing circus music that eventually morph into minimalist fragments. The final movement Harlem River runs the gamut between wistful lyricism and petulant polyphony jam packed with virtuoso flourishes.
While the 46-minute duration is brief by today’s long-playing CD standards, the wonderful Westerlies’ intelligently balanced and contrasted program will surely leave you sated and satisfied.
