11/06/2025
Great review of BLINK by Jon Garelick in Arts Fuse.
Blink, Blink (Driff) As I’ve said elsewhere in The Arts Fuse, generalizations about the music of saxophonist and composer Jorrit Dijkstra tend to fall short. In his eloquent liner notes to Blink, Dijkstra cites African highlife, Indonesian gamelan, Delta blues guitar, and African balafon to account for the music’s “organic swells in dynamics and density.” But the quick takeaway comparison here is Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time, with two guitars (Eric Hofbauer and Gabe Boyarin), electric bass guitar (Nate McBride), drums (Eric Rosenthal), and Dijkstra’s alto. There are all manner of layered rhythms and tempos here, and the guitars are tuned a quarter note sharp, for that extra bit of Ornette-like frisson of off-balance ensemble ecstasy. The result is free, but also highly ordered. Dijkstra favors keening folk-like alto melodies in the Coleman manner, and Hofbauer often joins him in loose unison amid the surrounding ruckus. Some pieces, like “Yet,” are slow and contemplative, while “Pulse” rides on the solid funk of what I think of as African 6/8. “Hop” shows Dijkstra’s affection for Steve Lacy, with a nearly uncountable ADHD-like staccato repetition of short modular phrases. Throughout, Nate McBride’s electric bass often acts like a third guitar line, further enhancing the web of sound.
Dijkstra compares these structured improvisations to other “group behavioral patterns such as insect swarms and bird flocks.” But for the most part, you can enjoy a colorful, elastic groove. And even in a collective ensemble approach like this, which favors group effect rather than solos, you can savor the embedded details, such as Rosenthal’s quiet, sustained passage in “Yet,” where he matches continuous light snare hits with the snip-snip-snip-snip of his hi-hat, or Dijkstra’s ardent alto cries on “Trans.”
An occasional feature that looks at current jazz albums of interest.
