Amor de Cosmos

The album ranges from funky jazz to open-horizon new music, sometimes within a single piece. The title track “Amor de Cosmos” opens with a solid groove, Gestrin’s electric piano keeping a steady pulse under Blake’s and Turner’s lyrical solos. The ‘air’ around Dylan van der Schyff’s cymbals floats over the music like a mist, and his energetic workout with Gestrin and Lachance towards the end of the tune is one of the highlights of the set.

Michael Blake is one of an all-too-common subset of the jazz community: players who create brilliant music while flying largely under the radar of widespread critical and/or popular acclaim….Like most of Blake’s projects, this one is as good as it is different from his last.

…engrossing…the compositions assume a slippery depth, and the ensemble treads nimbly and boldly. Mr. Blake is an endlessly engaging improviser, and an inquisitive one.

It's his most diverse recording since the omnibus Drift. There is a pair of raw, moody improvised abstractions between Blake and keyboardist Chris Gestrin, while the African-flavored "The Wash Away" – a piece inspired by a griot whose social function he connects to the First Nation natives of Western Canada – dances with an ebullient lyricism. Sections of "Temporary Constellation" and "So Long Seymour" reveal an almost minimalist new music sensibility, with carefully arranged unison lines featuring marimba player Sal Ferreras. Yet despite how varied the pieces are, they hold together beautifully. The ensemble does an excellent job at exploring Blake's rich harmonies. While the general tone is meditative, the players are never hamstrung by it – Blake and trumpeter Brad Turner are forceful without being distracting. More than any of his work, Amor de Cosmos captures every facet of Blake's significant talents, letting his improvisations, arrangements and compositions thrive on equal footing.