Horn Call Review of Adam Unsworth¹s CD "Excerpt This!"

By Jeffrey Agrell

I already had an inkling of what might lie in store for me with Adam Unsworth¹s first CD "Excerpt This!", having heard him on a cut of Douglas Hill¹s "Thoughtful Wanderings" CD. So I knew the best place to listen to it would be in the car, because there you have seat belts and air bags. And you can¹t fall out a car seat. Just one caveat: don¹t even think about driving while you¹re listening. Too much chance of forgetting little details like steering, speed limits, breathing, etc. No: just close the doors, belt in, and turn the volume up to 11. Be warned: the Wow Factor of this jazz horn CD is somewhere between "Whoa!" and "Holy Crap!!" If you haven¹t heard Adam Unsworth before or you have only seen a photo, you might be surprised: from the photo he looks like a choirboy, like Toby McGuire pre-Spiderman. Then he puts horn to chops and becomes Mr. Incredible.

The CD consists of seven jazz pieces: two unaccompanied and five with a band that consists of Unsworth, Diane Monroe (violin), Les Thimmig (bass clar., flute, alto flute), Tony Miceli (vibraphone), Ranaan Meyer (bass), and Cornell Rochester (drums). The band pieces are all by Unsworth, who has been composing and arranging jazz tunes for years since his sojourn at the University of Wisconsin where he studied horn with Douglas Hill and jazz composition with Les Thimmig. The arrangements and performances of the Unsworth tunes are all catchy and first rate, but they have one flaw as far as a horn player listener is concerned ­ they let other non-horn people solo. I admit it: I'm greedy. I can¹t get enough of Unsworth's playing. I want him to play all the time. The rest of the band is terrific. But I'm hooked. I drum my fingers until the other soloists have had their turns and Adam is back at the helm. My addiction does get sufficient attention in two numbers: "Graham's Crackers" and "Bluefire Crown II", which are both compositions for horn alone. The former is an Unsworth commission from Dana Wilson, jazz pianist, composer, and composition teacher at Ithaca College. Movement 1 ("Ballad") and movement 3 ("Samba") are written out; movement 2 ("Swing") is a jazz head that Unsworth plays and then improvises a chorus and a half on.

Unsworth, whose day job happens to be with the Philadelphia Orchestra, sounds completely at home with the jazz language of these compositions. He uses every color of the sonic rainbow, with cascades of sounds, now in the stratosphere, now way down low, now glissing or leaping instantaneously between the two. "Samba" adds a rhythm section of "chika chika" mouth noises. "Graham¹s Crackers" is a brilliant tour de force on an instrument formerly known as difficult. [trivia: the piece is named for Unsworth's son Graham, who was born just when the composition was finished]. "Bluefire Crown II" for solo horn was written by UW jazz professor Les Thimmig for Doug Hill in 1985. It is part of a series of Bluefire Crowns, all constructed around the idea of building a whole piece from a small germ motif. In this case, the first four bars are transmogrified into variations that eventually consume eleven pages of paper. Like the rest of the music on this CD that happens to be written out, "Bluefire" has the dazzle and pizzazz of improvised music, but alloyed with the unity of composed music. Astounding, infectious stuff.

Don¹t take my word for it. Sprint to www.adamsunsworth.com or www.cdbaby.com and order a copy. Tear it from the postman¹s hands upon arrival. Get in car. Listen. Repeat. Get out of car. Then send Adam Unsworth a letter with just one word: More!

Jeffrey Agrell, The Horn Call Magazine