Trumpeter and composer Ralph Alessi cuts a distinctive figure in contemporary jazz, with a remarkable ability to use the same tools as most – acoustic instrumentation, quartet and quintet formations, bop vocabulary – and still come up with something that sounds like no one else. A Sun That Never Set, his fifth album as a leader for ECM, bears this out. Fronting a fivesome made of friends and family, including his brother Joseph on trombone, Matt Mitchell on piano, John Hébert on bass, and Ches Smith on drums and percussion, Alessi carefully and calmly sculpts environments that feel like a singularity in the middle of post bop, chamber jazz, and some sort of sonic language unique to the leader himself. Despite, or, rather, encouraged by the craft with which Alessi builds the songs, his bandmates find new expressions within themselves. Listen to how Mitchell wanders around his keyboard on the ghostly “Ether,” flirting with but never hitting complete discordance, or the way brother Joseph, whose day job is playing with the New York Philharmonic, adds otherworldly moans to the background of “Nothing is Dead.” Ever the iconoclast, Smith continues his journey to redefine improvisational drumming by somehow holding down the beat without ever sticking to it. But it’s all in support of the boss, whose eloquent phrasing, inquisitive lead lines, and pure tone effortlessly lead the way, whether it’s on the vigorous “Transitory Imagery,” the spiraling “Relaxed Misery,” the ethereal “Sweet Spot,” or the exploratory “Duck Face.” Joined by his band’s essential contributions, Alessi’s songs and performances make A Sun That Never Set an exceptionally strong record.
