If there is a perception that the funk/rock/jazz stylings of the Vandermark 5 make the group a bit of a one-trick pony-albeit a pony that performs that one trick amazingly well-then Airports forLight,the group's sixth album of original studio material, and the first with drummer Tim Daisy, should belie that notion.
The Vandermark 5 is the group in which Ken Vandermark can try out his most intricate compositions, due to the frequency with which they play and the relatively slow turnover in personnel. Vandermark (tenor sax, clarinet, bass clarinet), Jeb Bishop (trombone-no guitar on this album), and Kent Kessler (bass) remain from the original 1996 lineup of the group, and altoist Dave Rempis has now been with them 5 for five years.
The funk is still there, in the massed horn riffs-sometimes you get the idea that Vandermark would have been quite happy as a sideman for James Brown-and indeed, there are pieces dedicated to Curtis Mayfield ("Other Cuts") and Otis Redding ("Long Term Fool"). But there's a lot more to it than that. Even within individual compositions, there is shifting of styles, as on the opener, "Crux Campo," in which a hyped-up West Coast double tempo drum line gives way to a bass-heavy riff and a screaming tenor solo by Vandermark.
The nine tracks are beautifully paced, up-tempo to ballad, microtonal to funky, West Coast cool to wild R&B. If there is one complaint, it is with the close to indecipherable font used for the track listings. But that's about the worst thing I can say about Airports for Light. Given the music, I'll live with it-happily.
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