Meridian Odyssey
Second Wave
ORIGIN RECORDS
All five musicians in the marvelous new quintet Meridian Odyssey are familiar in Seattle, but fans may be surprised to learn that the group got together not here, but in Alaska, where guitarist Martin Budde grew up, the son of a bush pilot. Making the best of the musical shutdown forced by COVID-19, the five young men joined Budde up north, where they set up an ad hoc recording studio in an airplane hangar. There, they recorded an album that soars, free-falls, does the loop de loop and a whole lot more.
With a mysterious, distant, quietly electrified sound that evokes the ‘60s and ‘70s work of such figures such as John Abercrombie and Jack DeJohnette, Meridian Odyssey essays six originals and one composition by veteran Seattle composer Jim Knapp. The music is complex, deftly arranged and delivered with grace and relaxed abandon. All of the tracks exude that ineffably soulful quality the Spanish call duende, but bassist Ben Feldman’s gorgeous “For Antongiulio,” has an especially Andalusian feel, with guest musicians Lucas Winter and Gus Carns contributing guitar and piano, respectively. “Quarantine Blues” captures the loneliness and yearning we have experienced over the past year and builds to a dramatic climax. The group takes Knapp’s “Looking Ahead” at a fast clip, with tenor saxophonist Santosh Sharma burning up the place. Drummer Xavier Lecouturier, snappy but never overbearing, shines in a solo at the end on Santosh’s “Second Wave.”
Budde and electric keyboardist Dylan Hayes create a watery landscape on the varying tempos of Lecouturier’s “Interlake” and Sharma passionately busts through the edges of notes, a la Dewey Redman, on “F Minus,” composed by Budde, who adds glowing single-note lines. The pretty “NT,” by Budde and Hayes, features the guitarist’s jangly, atmospheric side—no doubt enhanced by the recording environment—over a steady-state beat.
Two of the five players here—Feldman and Sharma—are now based in New York, but let’s hope all five reconvene to play live in Seattle when the pandemic finally ends.
–Paul de Barros
