Noah Preminger

Contemporary Jazz With A New Face

Viewpoint by: Susan Frances

Saxophonist-composer Noah Preminger makes his debut with his sextet’s release, Dry Bridge Road from Nowt Records.  When many jazz musicians believe that modernizing jazz music means incorporating pop culture elements like hip hop, rap, urban, or ska, Preminger takes a look back at old school bop fashioned by the likes of Albert Ayler and Steve Lacy and injects it with a modern slant.  The 22-year old Preminger formed his sextet recently, which comprises of trumpeter Russ Johnson, pianist Frank Kimbrough, guitarist Ben Monder, bassist John Hebert, and drummer Ted Poor.   The group makes the compositions in Preminger’s mind a reality.

The group’s twisted chord movements, interlocking links, rapturous phrases, and confluence of angular pathways create a post-bop rapport which transform into dashing avant garde cables running along the tracks.  The Noah Preminger Group’s tune “Blues For Steve Lacy” has graceful undulations, while the aggregated masses and lacerations along “Luke” and “Where Seagulls Fly” are positively charged.  The group’s collective improvisations on “Today Is Okay” and the palindrome “Was It A Rat I Saw?” produce a call and response exchange that makes listeners feel like they are in the center of a drum circle as the musicians communicate actively with each other, shifting their meters and changing their due points.  “Today Is Okay” is named after an album by the Icelandic rock band, Mum, who have inspired Preminger’s own song ideas which involves forming a genesis of different chord reactions. The group shakes up the instruments angles, shifts the rhythmic swells, dimples the melodic patterns, and creates contrasts in the chord textures like in the track “Rhythm For Robert,” which has a rusty rock sear and post-bop padding with avant angled grill marks as Preminger inserts curt saxophone slices in the rhythmic pockets.

The Noah Preminger Group do everything from ribbing their patterns and whisking their riffs to roasting their solvents and piercing their lines.  The sextet moves the compositions in different directions and takes them through evolving stages, showing a propensity to experiment by skewering the harmonies and displaying old school mechanics.  The sextet’s interactive exchanges are a testament to jazz music’s natural inclination to create improvised jam sessions that spark people’s creative juices which go beyond mainstream conditioning.

For more information: www.noahpreminger.com/live

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