Riptide
Atlas Maior (59 mins)
This Austin, Texas-based band specialise in a mix of contemporary and progressive jazz with music from the Arab and Turkish worlds. At the core of Atlas Maior and Riptide is the intricate interplay between the alto saxophone of Josh Thompson and the oud of Charlie Lockwood. They take turns in soloing, they come together for unison sections and branch off into harmonies occasionally.
While similar Arabic jazz fusions can tend towards the slower, quieter and more pensive side of things, you won’t get that here. The default pace is driving and the energy is just tastefully short of bombastic. There are cameos from other styles such as cumbia, Ethiojazz, surf rock and reggae, and the sax sometimes has a Balkan feel to it, bringing to mind Yuri Yunakov.
There’s also a handful of guests joining the sax-oud-drums (Ted Camat) core of Atlas Maior. Roberto Riggio provides some beautiful double-stopped violin on the track ‘Chamber of Mirrors’ but it’s the album’s closer ‘Osman Pehlivan’ featuring Palestinian oud player Sari Adoni that is the overall highlight. The ten-minute epic allows for the development of emergent thematic material that draws on all the other styles found throughout the album, leading to a fulfilling conclusion.