The bassist Todd Sickafoose builds grooves from the ground up, but
that's no impediment to the flow or buoyancy of his music. "Tiny
Resistors," his third and strongest album as a leader, features a
number of tunes in which multiple horn parts and guitar lines swirl
around a tonal center, and over a calmly asymmetrical pulse. "Cloud of
Dust," the title of one, feels appropriate; so too does "Invisible
Ink, Revealed."
Mr. Sickafoose has serious training in jazz, and there are more than
enough intelligent solo flashes on the album to place it on a
progressive post-bop axis. But he's also a rock musician, best known
to many fans as a longtime confrere to Ani DiFranco (who appears
briefly and unobtrusively here). As a composer he favors a
straightforward rhythmic thrust and deceptively simple melodies; the
most intricate developments tend to occur in a hazy middle register,
where layered chords agglomerate and shift.
Crucial to this balance is the rapport of a working band, cultivated
within the eclectic Brooklyn scene. Some individual playing stands out
- the trombonist Alan Ferber and the guitarist Mike Gamble both
distinguish themselves - but nothing outshines the collective sound.
Obviously Mr. Sickafoose, who augments his bass playing with assorted
work on keyboard and mallet-percussion instruments, has a band
identity in mind here. He achieves it with a rigorously focused
imagination, and with no apparent strain. - by Nate Chinen
