EE Pointer: Worm (1 July 2024)
Always eclectic and compelling, and often experimental, EE Pointer is one of a kind, as a composer, musicians (trumpet, keys), and bandleader. Pointer has a new album, WORM, that dropped as a CD and as streaming July 1.
The album traces (through music) “some touchstone over the past two years. Some heavy times,” Pointer writes in the album liner notes. The album opens with Pointer’s iconic go-to style, late-Miles Davis trumpet over two-and-four, an electric brassy fusion style Pointer has perfected and for which he is known, such as with KC’s own River Cow Orchestra. But this is not an album of only that. It shifts drastically (but gradually) from this modern sound across soundscapes to music “in the tradition,” such as “Uprights,” which sounds like a ragtime stride tune. It’s piano-only, nothing electronic or electric, and the tune has a kind of levity our era lacks. In some ways, the album sounds diary-like. One day, rain. Another, clouds. Another, sun. But, despite its variety, the album is unified and seems carefully plotted and planned. The tunes lead one into the other, of a piece, invisibly stitched.
About the album, Pointer writes, “I don’t want to spoon feed anybody any ideas of what the music means, sounds like, or how it was created. It is still pretty much impressionistic, so the ball is in the listener’s court (to mix my metaphors). The Neo Impressionistic slant of the compositions on ‘Worm’ should supply all who want to share in the fun with plenty of their own impressions of the music,” and, for this listener, they do. It is Pointer at top form, who meditates on one day or one month, then watches the clouds and birds, like the ancient Greeks, finding prophetic lessons in them. Afterwards, we learn the news from them, these tunes.
There’s funk. There’s electric jazz. There’s traditional work. There’s double time. There are ballads. And, although Pointer appears to work alone here, he seems multiple: keys and trumpet and drums. (And more.) And it doesn’t sound homemade. It sounds modernly made, as if the whole trio (or more) is Pointer’s home orchestra held at his fingertips and also behind a blue screen.Highlights include the quiet, pensive, music-box-like “Reflection,” played on electric keys. But softly, like a lullaby. Pointer’s light touch mirrors that of Bill Evans.
Give WORM a listen. It’s unlike anything else. Propulsive, yet meditative, Pointer serves up another thoughtful, contemporary hit.
--Kevin Rabas