David Smith Quintet - Anticipation (2010) FLAC

Brooklyn Jazz Underground Records proudly releases the new recording, Anticipation, from the Canadian-born, Brooklyn-based trumpeter/composer David Smith. The album features an outstanding rhythm section that has been Smith’s working unit for the past several years, Nate Radley on guitar, the much in demand Gary Wang on bass, and fellow Canadian Greg Ritchie on drums; plus an old friend on saxophone, longtime musical colleague Kenji Omae. As you can hear on Anticipation, these are musicians with whom Smith shares a special camaraderie.

Anticipation, the follow up recording to Smith’s debut recording Circumstance (2006, FSNT), is largely about the experiences in Smith’s life surrounding the birth of his daughter Hannah (who appears on the cover and inside). The recording opens with the title track, which refers to “the feelings, and to some degree anxiety I felt about impending fatherhood, but also the word as a musical term.” Smith explains further, “the tune is built around a three-part counterpoint in the guitar with each resulting chord anticipating the beginning and middle of each measure which ends up making for a somewhat relentless and perpetual motion throughout the song.”

For David Smith, meeting guitarist Nate Radley was the impetus for him to start a band, and he has had the luxury to have him on nearly all of his gigs since the beginning (2005). Smith explains, “we played for the first time at a session at Greg Ritchie's place, and after playing one of my tunes and one of his tunes, I felt that he and I shared a musical compatibility that is very rare.” Radley’s tune “Carillon”, first played at that informal session, is featured on Anticipation simply because Smith loves how it combines musical interest with relative simplicity. “It is beautifully constructed and lots of fun to play on,” said the trumpeter.

Smith composed “Bittersweet” (which employs some species counterpoint techniques he was studying at the time) in an attempt to convey some of the complex emotions he was feeling about fatherhood prior to his daughter’s birth. The tune was also influenced by the Ben Monder composition “ Luteous Pangolin”, as played by The Alan Ferber Nonet, of which Dave is a member.

“Alone” was composed during an unplanned separation from his wife and daughter. Smith explains, “We live in a Brooklyn duplex and our landlord decided to do a major gut renovation of the entire apartment directly below. Our place became filled with fine dust and out of health concerns we hastily sent my wife and daughter to Japan to stay with family until the renovations were done, which ended up lasting two months. The feelings of separation for the first time, and at a time of considerable development (right after her 1st birthday), were not something I was prepared for. As is often the case though I am most inspired to write when I have strong feelings to express and this tune came out rather easily. Being alone I had the luxury of spending a lot of time listening to music (not always possible with a young child), and one day listening to the first few measures of the Mozart D Minor Piano Concerto (no. 20 K.466) I immediately ran to the piano and began with the first few measures of this.”

The other fascinating original composition on the recording is “The Question”, Smith’s double-time, intervallic melody over the changes to Monk’s “Ask Me Now”, with a bar of 5/4 thrown in at the end of the bridge, “more or less for comic relief,” said Smith.

Other highlights on Anticipation include a stirring rendition of the standard “All Or Nothing At All”, rendered here with Smith’s triadic reharmonization of the melody. And satisfying Smith’s penchant for John Coltrane tunes that utilize his “Giant Steps” cycle, Smith offers up a brilliant odd-time arrangement of Coltrane’s “Satellite.”

Brooklyn Jazz Underground Records, a sister company to the Brooklyn Jazz Underground collective, was launched in the Spring of 2008. The label grew out of the entrepreneurial, DIY spirit that gave birth to the BJU in January of 2007. BJURecords is proud to expand its catalog with Anticipation, a stellar new recording from an artist who is conscientiously building a momentous body of work that reflects and defines the Brooklyn scene in its own unique way.