Jason Roebke - Every Sunday (2015)

Chicagoan bassist leads deliciously spare trio set It might be his name that hangs over the marquee and the burbling flurries of his double-bass the first notes which you hear, but Roebke knows when to take a back seat, to free up his fellow musicians, encouraging them to improvise around the commodious passages of his finely fashioned arrangements.Consequently for much of Every Sunday it’s guitarist Matthew Schneider who ventures to the fore, his fragile and abstract melodies drawing on Bill Frisell’s Americana-infused atmospherics, while the barely there ambience of Jakob Bro’s astonishingly beautiful Gefion provides an indicator as to the frugal pacing of proceedings.

Roebke – a much-sought after accompanist in his own right, who’s worked alongside such luminaries as Tim Barnes, Jeb Bishop and Jason Adasiewicz – has composed with such an understanding and empathy here as to enable another musician to maximise their potential, while allowing his own passion for the guitar to be exquisitely realised through the plentiful gifts of another. And so the final bow must be Schneider’s, whose deft playing reaches far beyond even the loose confines of contemporary jazz to encompass the stripped-bare melancholia of Dirty Three spin-off Tren Brothers. Certainly a name to watch for.

Tracklist:

1. Every Sunday (feat. Matthew Schneider & Marcus Evans) (23:07)
2. So Big (feat. Matthew Schneider & Marcus Evans) (20:16)
3. For Jimmy Woode (feat. Matthew Schneider & Marcus Evans) (15:10)