Dan Krimm, an electric fretless bassist of great sensitivity who plays with the limberness and timbral depth of an acoustic bassist, works here in a quartet with soprano saxophonist Rob Sudduth, frequent collaborator Gary Monheit (piano), and drummer Grant Jarrett (who was on Krimm’s debut four decades ago).
Krimm’s harmonies (all six tracks are his compositions) are often pleasingly off the beaten path, occasionally sounding modal, while the melodies are always highly tuneful no matter how trickily they twist through those harmonies.
If this music has any antecedent, it’s the darkly glinting Eurojazz of ECM stalwarts Jan Garbarek, Eberhard Weber, and Arild Andersen, but Krimm and band have their own sound, and the tracks vary from mellow beauty to—more often—percolating energy. Krimm has not been prolific in recent years; it’s great to have him back.
