Kelly Rossum - Line Reviews

Kelly Rossum is a trumpet player from Minneapolis who owns an enthusiastic, genuine timbre and a fabulous-looking hairdo. He’s accompanied by four excellent comrades: Woody Witt (tenor sax), Chris Thomson (tenor and soprano sax), Chris Bates (bass) and J.T.Bates (drums), a quintet that in “Line” was captured live in a room, warts and all. “This is a jazz record”, we’re warned. And good, healthy jazz is indeed what we get: expositions of themes, solos, attentive interplay and boiling energies. There’s more or less everything needed, with additional doses of finesse (“Seduction”, with a delicate muted trumpet in the protagonist’s role), a collective improvisation dressed like an EAI raga (“Places of the mindful”) and a series based on the six “Line” tracks - one being the full version, the other five sketched interpretations of its quirky, angular theme - acting as a skeleton for the whole album. The good news is that the ensemble looks ready to sustain both the opposite forces at work in the most dissonant networks and to let everything loose during pieces that sound easy-going to the point of appearing almost like a divertissement (“La vita a Roma”). The latter’s title, in conjunction with the note in Italian language dedicated to his friends in this country, let me guess that - besides being a talented musician - Kelly is too good of a human being. These days, when I go to Rome for work, I feel the urge of running away within fifteen minutes.



Home	Performance Schedule	About Kelly Rossum	Contact and Press Info	Discography	FREE Downloads