‘Traces’ arrives as a luminous exploration of sound, memory, and lineage, crystallizing the vast musical intelligence of Cosmic Ear into six interwoven compositions that honor the spectral presence of Don Cherry while staking out their own contemporary territory. From the first resonant pulses of “Father and Son,” the ensemble establishes a dialogue between the ancestral and the experimental: Christer Bothén’s bass clarinet and contra bass clarinet trace subterranean contours while Mats Gustafsson’s tenor sax and slide flute drift above like a spectral wind, oscillating between meditative lyricism and ecstatic eruption. Goran Kajfeš’s trumpet, augmented with synth and electronics, punctuates the dialogue, lending both warmth and an unmistakable modern edge, while Kansan Zetterberg and Juan Romero provide grounding and propulsion through bass lines, donso n’goni, berimbau, and congas, creating a polyrhythmic lattice that is simultaneously anchored and fluid.
“TRACES of Brown Rice” exemplifies Cosmic Ear’s ability to inhabit history while transforming it. The piece unfolds with contemplative reverence, the percussion, bolstered here by the karignan played by special guest Marianne N’Lemwo, offering subtle complexity, while Gustafsson’s Ab clarinet and organ textures create layers of both weight and levity. It’s a meditation that never stagnates; motifs reappear, refracted through live electronics and nuanced harmonic shifts, evoking both the warmth of Cherry’s Swedish collaborations and a wholly contemporary sensibility.
“Love Train” demonstrates the group’s gift for collective momentum. The interlocking rhythms of Romero and Zetterberg propel the ensemble forward with a buoyant insistence, while Kajfeš’s trumpet soars and weaves around Gustafsson’s piercing flutes. Bothén alternates between grounded bass motifs and the more ethereal timbres of piano and contrabass clarinet, threading the improvisation with a connective tissue that never loses sight of melody. The composition feels simultaneously celebratory and expansive, echoing Cherry’s globalized ethos without replicating it.
“Right Here Right Now” leans into immediacy and spatial interplay. The group negotiates texture and silence with an instinctive precision, creating sonic landscapes that shift from near-stillness to cascading polyphony. Live electronics and subtle synth manipulations by Gustafsson and Kajfeš refract acoustic timbres, creating a luminous horizon where tradition and innovation coexist. The interplay between bass clarinet and trumpet, in particular, produces a dialogue that is both intimate and cosmic, the music alive to every micro-gesture.
“Do It (Again) – For Sofia Jernberg” functions as both homage and experiment, referencing the intrepid vocal explorations of its dedicatee. The ensemble employs microtonal interplay, sliding scales, and percussive textures to produce a layered experience that is as much about resonance and breath as it is about melody. Gustafsson’s live electronics add glimmers of unpredictability, while Bothén’s bass clarinet articulates a grounded counterpoint, ensuring the work retains a human core amid its astral sweep.
The album closes with “TRACES of Codona and Mali,” a composition that epitomizes the collective’s ethos of tracing lineage while transforming it. The rhythms of Romero and Zetterberg interweave with melodic fragments of Bothén and Gustafsson, while Kajfeš’s electronic interventions recall the elasticity of global jazz fusion. The piece is an archival meditation refracted through contemporary sensibilities, a conversation between continents, instruments, and temporalities, closing the album in a state of reflective expansiveness.
‘Traces’ is at once a scholarly engagement with jazz history and an exuberant exercise in collective intuition. Every member contributes not only virtuosity but a distinct interpretive voice, and the album’s success lies in its seamless integration of global influences, historical memory, and forward-facing creativity. Cosmic Ear crafts music that feels immediate yet deeply rooted, brimming with a vitality that resists containment, and ‘Traces’ stands as an offering that invites full immersion while rewarding with a profound, meditative sense of joy.
Learn more by visiting We Jazz Records and Bandcamp.
