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As a Leader

As a Co-Leader

With Exit 50

As a Sideman

Back to Renovation Reviews Kelly Rossum Renovation I think it is possible to ask the question as to whether this is a jazz record. Most of the music doesn’t swing in any traditional sense. Many of the harmonies, grooves and forms draw inspiration from music far removed from jazz. But these are definitely jazz musicians, using the jazz process of group improvisation and individual invention to make music in the moment. They are drawing from whatever their ear tells them is fitting. That is definitely jazz. Either way, I don't care. Critics make their living debating this stuff. Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, John Lewis and the Modern Jazz Quartet have all drawn from music outside the jazz tradition. Even the music's allegedly most conservative practitioner, Wynton Marsalis, goes far outside of traditional jazz harmonies, instrumentation and time signatures in his composing. … So Kelly Rossum, the composer, arranger and trumpeter, brings all these materials to the process of making a record. He should be proud of this record. I like it and I think many people will enjoy it. He is a player of depth and soul who is in process, on the journey to make a complete statement. We should be glad his answer to all the questions surrounding making a record was to raise his trumpet in defiance, or in Kelly's way, to raise it and say, “what the hell, it should be cool.” Jeremy Walker Co-Founder Brilliant Corners Return to Renovation Reviews