Dance music can take this form, too. Cellist Tomeka Reid belongs to the younger generation of avant-garde jazz in the United States and, both as a soloist and with her quartet, represents a distinctly intellectual strain of improvised music. When Reid and her quartet foreground the words »dance«, »skip« and »hop« in the title of their current album – complete with exclamation marks – this is not merely a cerebral conceit, but something to be taken quite literally.
One does need a certain suppleness of mind and body to translate the knotty grooves of the title track into rhythmic movement, yet it is by no means impossible. Equally, one can surrender to the angular, polyrhythmic swing without ever leaving one’s seat. This is not “head music” that denies its audience the pleasure of listening. Amiable melodies – at times recalling a slightly over-cranked strain of folk – play their part, as does the collective sound Reid cultivates with guitarist Mary Halvorson, bassist Jason Roebke and drummer Tomas Fujiwara. Attentiveness, complexity and the joy of deviating from the familiar coexist here with striking ease. Perhaps a small hop after all?
