Luís Vicente Trio - Come Down Here

This is the sophomore album of the Luis Vicente Trio, after their 2021 release "Chanting In The Name Of", with Luís Vicente on trumpet, bells, whistle and mbira, Gonçalo Almeida on double bass, and Pedro Melo Alves drums, percussion and objects. 

It's again a treat from beginning to end, music with deep roots in jazz tradition and even much older folk music, but with a totally modern openness to the world, full of brightness, joy and heartfelt emotion. 

All compositions are penned by Vicente, with the exception of the Brazilian traditional "Mandei Caiar O Meu Sobrado", a song that exemplifies the communal power of not only connecting the musicians to each other, but including the audience as well. It strikes a direct emotional bond, reaching out to what we all feel, the sadness, the comfort, the joy of being part of something bigger. 

And then there's the beauty of the musical freedom: the intensity of three musicians who interact with solid experience of when to emphasise, when to change, when to take a step back ... it all comes so natural and organic, fascinating in its technical quality and openness. 

The title track is a wonderful uptempo and powerful song full of rhythmic dynamics supporting a jubilatory mood, and with a superb role for the drums. On "Why No Is No" they unleash their demons in a very Ornette Coleman type structure, with an anchor theme allowing for some wild and powerful group dynamics. "Nascente" is more gentle, led by Almeida's deep bass sounds, reinforced by the precise percussion of Melo Alves, and the melancholy trumpet joins for closure. 

The most amazing track is the long "Penumbra" that ends the album, and which navigates between an expressive trumpet against a background of an ominous marching rhythm: it expresses pain, anger, distress, sadness and the subtle nuances in between for which no words exist, offering us a song of pure beauty.

This album by the trio is again a winner. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp.