The great sage Willie Dixon insisted that “you can’t judge a book by looking at the cover.” If I hadn’t already seen the former Kansas City area resident Dave Scott perform several times, the lamentable title and uninspired album art of In Search of Hipness would have compelled me to take a hard pass on his new release.
My shallowness would have caused me to missed out on of the new year’s most intriguing albums. The packaging may not be hip, but trumpeter's off-kilter New York City chamber jazz is extremely stylish. Even as the recording echoes the past masters Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy and Andrew Hill, it’s entirely au currant. Violinist Sarah Bernstein, guitarist Nate Radley, pianist Jacob Sacks, bassist David Ambrosio and drummer Mark Ferber help Scott create up-to-the-minute soundscapes.
Dixon also proclaimed that “you can’t judge right by looking at the wrong.” Adventurous jazz fans shouldn’t allow the surface imperfections of In Search of Hipness to dissuade them from appreciating Scott’s extraordinarily beautiful work.
(Original image by Plastic Sax.)
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