DAN PITT QUINTET

HORIZONTAL DEPTHS

Independent Label

Dan Pitt, electric guitar/composer; Alex Fournier, double bass; Nick Fraser, drums/cymbals; Patrick Smith, tenor & soprano saxophone; Naomi McCarroll-Butler, alto saxophone/bass clarinet.

Dan Pitt opens his first song called “27 Hours” with a funky electric guitar solo.  When drummer Nick Fraser enters, he also brings the funk, tinged with rock and roll.  Although Patrick Smith and Naomi McCarroll-Butler both bring jazz into the arrangement soloing on their saxophones, the crux of this tune shines in a hard-rock spotlight propelled by Pitt’s electric guitar.

The title tune slows the groove down to a ballad introduction with Butler and Smith blowing tight harmonies on their saxophones.  Dan Pitt enters with his electric guitar taking center stage.  He is currently referred to as a vital force on the Canadian jazz and improvised music landscape.  A tune he wrote called “This is Fine” meanders onto the scene, quite melodic at first featuring Alex Fournier’s double bass being bowed beautifully.  Pitt’s arrangements often mix genres, stitching rock into his songs with a pointed needle, then adding abstract electronics and even folk music into his original song arrangements.  This is quite evident on his original, “This is Fine.”

In another breath, the quintet offers us “The Sorrow” featuring Pitt’s guitar at the top of the tune to tenderly set the tone and mood.  Pitt holds a Bachelor of Music in jazz Performance from the University of Toronto.  Naomi McCarroll-Butler sweetly sings on her bass clarinet during this arrangement.  This is inventive and experimental music that Dan Pitt composes. As I listen, I wonder how much room he leaves for these musicians to improvise.  Much of the music sounds like they are reading charted lines, especially on “The Sorrow” arrangement.  I would have enjoyed hearing more freedom of improvisation.

His original composition, “Echo Park” sounds like an avenue packed with heavy traffic.  The tempo changes keep it interesting.  Once again, it’s the saxophone solos that stretch jazz across these arrangements like a taunt rubber band, while Pitt plucks his guitar like a banjo.

At last, “Tautology” (that means saying something twice using different words), slows the groove down and becomes a ballad where the bass clarinet can sparkle brilliantly. Fraser’s drums make me want to slow-dance with someone. Midway through this tune, a flurry of energy flies like a flock of confused birds and ruffles the feathers of this ballad arrangement.  For a few unexpected moments, it turns into a more Avant-garde experiment, then swings back to a slow, R&B groove ending as a ballad.

The Dan Pitt Quintet brings an assortment of compositions that reflect the guitarists’ artistic growth since his debut recording in 2019.  Pitt continues to push the boundaries of musical expression, employing melodies that range from singable to perplexing.  This music, by its title alone, is concentrating on linear motion and searching for “Horizontal Depths.”  Part two of that title tune is one of my favorites on this album, allowing pure freedom to ring from Fournier’s bass solo like a jazz improvisation should.

Reviewed by Dee Dee McNeil

 

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