Matthew Putman, Hill Greene and Francisco Mela — Bright Sun Outside

The trio of Matthew Putman, Hill Greene and Francisco Mela have one previous album, on 577 Records, titled Believe That Was Me, and has now put together this second album for the same label, Bright Sun Outside. Their music is improvisatory jazz, so perhaps one might call it 'free jazz', but it is certainly not unmusical, with plenty of melody and structure to be found, and spirited bursts of spontaneous activity that break out of that, as well. This album draws primarily from late 60's and early 70's hard bop, my favourite era of jazz, with rapid tempos, agile figures, and a great avalanche of frenzied notes. The forty-nine-minute album consists of nine pieces which range from two to nearly ten minutes.

Francisco Mela played with McCoy Tyner, so that is perhaps a sonic reference for this, though Tyner's music tended to be more composed than this. Bright Sun Outside often reminds me of the more deranged and deconstructed moments of Charles Mingus' massive 30-minute live versions, which drift unfathomably far to the stratosphere, losing all touch with familiarity, before crashing madly back into tunefulness.

This is marvellous playing with an infectious manic energy. Each in the trio is active and clearly heard, and they have the formidable presence of a much larger group. One completely forgets that there is no horn lead. Pianist Matthew Putman's percussive chordal stabs and bluesy melodic flourishes tend to keep us anchored somewhat in a familiar jazz tonality, even where the tempo becomes somewhat elastic. Drummer Francisco Mela is constantly erupting with slight expressive fills and accents, intricately dancing around an implied meter without ever precisely aligning to it. Hill Greene, who plucked his upright bass in the first couple of pieces, begins to bow to haunting effect in "Hidden Secrets". Initially the most subdued of the three, he plucks a lamenting lead in "Mysteries of Nature", echoing the melancholy of Putman's piano.

The shorter pieces (such as "A New Beginning") tend to be eerie or melancholic ambient melodies, light on percussion. I prefer the tracks with enough runtime to establish some contrasted dynamic peaks and valleys, such as the 8-minute opener "Airplane to the Sky", which ends with a serene lounge section after the full tilt intensity of its hard bop middle.

The heady density of this performance should satisfy any discerning fan of out jazz. This is my favorite kind of improvisatory music, one which does not avoid pleasure, tunefulness or emotion, but rather uses the spontaneity of improvisation to discover new melodies, narrative arcs and resolutions, creating things on the fly that can truly be called 'songs'. Putman's piano playing, in particular, is responsible for making this album of spontaneous jazz as tuneful as composed music.