The intriguing title of Microkingdom’s latest album, Three Compositions Of No Jazz, made me wonder if the Baltimore trio were making some kind of statement, serious or tongue-in-cheek, about their genre affiliations or how composed or improvised their music is. As it turns out, the title is a nod to both Anthony Braxton’s Three Compositions Of New Jazz and the ’70s post-punk “no wave” movement, and those reference points in and of themselves make a potent statement about where Microkingdom is coming from.

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As it turns out, Three Compositions, released digitally and on vinyl by Friends Records, features seven compositions over the course of eight tracks by guitarist Marc Miller, percussionist Will Redman and reeds player John Dierker. The lead track “Peppermint Crab” is a short, strangely inviting bouquet of textures, which opens with a gorgeous combination of Miller’s guitar and Redman’s mallet percussion to ending with a hair-raising saxophone squeal from Dierker less than three minutes later.

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Over the course of Three Compositions, the trio prove how deftly they blur the line between composition and improvisation with pieces that at some turns feel carefully assembled and others chaotic, with occasional digital manipulations and edits showing the seams on where Microkingdom continued to compose the songs well after the recording of the instrumental performances. The two-part centerpiece of the album, “Gamut Runner,” puts the album’s longest tracks back to back, and offers perhaps its greatest variety of sounds and moods. After the upbeat, almost funky first half of the song, the slow burn of the 7-minute “Gamut Runner Pt. 2″ is a quiet, subtle highlight of a record full of visceral pleasures.

J.E.L. recently came back to Mobtown to record a live in- the-studio EP. Killer jazz, no filler. Jay Seay on trumpet, Ezekiel Roebuck, Jr on piano and Larry Stokes on drums. Here are two of my favorite cuts:

Red Clay [Freddie Hubbard]
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Cherokee [Ray Noble]
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Last weekend, Jay Seay and his jazz quartet came in to track an extended EP. We used a ribbon mic on the trumpet to give it that vintage 1950s Blue Note aesthetic. To capture the upright bass, we used a combination of a contact mic at the bridge and a Neumann U87 at the bassist’s hands to capture the pluck of the strings.

We’ll be mixing the record later this month, but in the meantime, here’s a rough mix for your listening pleasure:

Milestones
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