The Cosmic Tones Research Trio (Mississippi Records) [Jazz]

The Slow Music Movement
4 days ago
1 min read

*** This blog post first appeared in TSMM's November 9th Newsletter, where you can get all the tips (and more) first ***

The cover for The Cosmic Tones Research Trio's self titled album, showing the trio in black and white pose vertically stacked. "The Cosmic Tones Research Trio" text on left. Right: abstract art on blue sheet music.

The Cosmic Tones Research Trio hit the ground running last year with their debut album which became an instant favourite at TSMM HQ. In the review I mentioned “the LP unifies an ambient sensibility with the humblest of spiritual jazz and by nature of its contemplative, oh so gentle approach to note generation also enters wellness imbuing new age realms.“ What’s not to like?

The trio are Roman Norfleet on sax and flute, Kennedy Verrett on keys, flute, small percussion and didgeridoo and Harlan Silverman’s at the controls of cello, flute, percussion and subtle electronics, and I’m happy to report that if you liked the first album then you’ll probably get/lie down to the new one too.

The Cosmic Tones Research Trio in a deliberately blurred photo wearing ethnic attire holding instruments, set against a textured background. The atmosphere is artistic and dynamic.

This time round the arrangements largely eschew the barely conscious drones and ambient jazz of their debut to take more familiar, gravity beholden forms, there’s even hand played percussion on “Sankofa”. Rest assured they’re still encouraging you to put your feet up and float away on the far out vibes - the instruments are set to sooth rather than stir, and the now discernible compositions have also brought into sharper focus the soft hearts of the trio and accentuated their new age glow, but by dint of the accomplished playing and purity they manage to stay the right side of schmaltzy. Smooth modern jazz rarely sounds this good.