Stating the Obvious

Stating the Obvious

Dan Clucas, corent; Brian Walsh, clarinet; Noah Phillips, electric guitar; Michael Ibarra, contrabass; Rich West, drums The members of Dan Clucas’s jazz quintet seem equally comfortable playing straight-ahead riffs, wigging out on distortion, or showing off their free improv skills, all of which they do in abundance, bleeding seamlessly from one mode to another on… Read more »

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NewMusicBox Staff

Dan Clucas, corent; Brian Walsh, clarinet; Noah Phillips, electric guitar; Michael Ibarra, contrabass; Rich West, drums

The members of Dan Clucas’s jazz quintet seem equally comfortable playing straight-ahead riffs, wigging out on distortion, or showing off their free improv skills, all of which they do in abundance, bleeding seamlessly from one mode to another on the cheekily-titled “Stating the Obvious.” While Clucas on cornet and Brian Walsh on clarinet conjure up the totally simpatico interweaving of voices of the great late ’50s and early ’60s hard bop quintets that made skeptics acknowledge jazz as bona fide chamber music, Noah Philips’s electric guitar adds some danger to the mix creating a musical mélange that would only be possible in a post-grunge universe.

—FJO