Andrew Renfroe - Run in the Storm (2021)

Andrew Renfroe is best known as the first-call guitarist for artists including Braxton Cook, Carmen Lundy, Tia Fuller, Ned Goold and Jonathan Barber. Based in New York, he brought a spellbinding musical vision into view on his 2020 EP Dark Grey [“wide-ranging selection … hard-hitting and swinging … crisp and assertive” – jazzweekly.com]. While Dark Grey was a mission statement of influences and inventive takes on varied source material — Delta blues, West African music, the Coltrane quartet, the late 20th-century French composer Olivier Messiaen — Renfroe approached his full-length debut album Run in the Storm as a vehicle solely for original compositions, a significant step in his career as a rising leader.

Amid the various sonic surprises is the expressive wood-and-wire tone and elastic phrasing of Renfroe’s guitar. The airy blues lyricism we hear on “Dula,” the biting yet elegant solo in the second half of “Gotham”: just a few spots on Run in the Storm that make it abundantly clear — Renfroe is a guitarist to watch. With heavy-gauge strings, thick picks and strong attack, plus an acoustic mic capturing his natural tone to complement the overdriven electric sound, he falls stylistically somewhere between a traditional, jazz language-based approach and a modern pedal-wielding sensibility. His guitar influences are decidedly rootsier and more blues-based, less liquid and ethereal, than what is common in today’s young jazz guitar field — something reflected in his intimate quasi-acoustic 2020 duo release Small Vacation with bassist Luke Sellick.

Moreover, Renfroe’s uncanny unison blend with alto saxophonist Braxton Cook is a key focal point of Run in the Storm, born of common influences and an immediate musical bond the two formed in the early days of Renfroe’s Masters studies at Juilliard. To date Renfroe has made vital appearances on Cook’s three acclaimed albums Fire Sign, Somewhere In Between and No Doubt.