Russ Johnson Quartet

Russ Johnson – trumpet

Mark Feldman – violin

Ethan Philion – bass

Timothy Daisy – percussion

Performing a book of new compositions for an upcoming recording following the critically acclaimed “Reveal,” released in 2023 on Calligram Records.

“From the opening intervals of “Skips,” trumpeter and composer Russ Johnson’s “Reveal” makes good on the promise inherent in the album’s title. Slyly unveiling interconnected themes and infectious grooves, the chord-less quartet — an unusual front-line of Johnson’s trumpet and Mark Feldman’s violin with drummer Timothy Daisy and bassist Ethan Philion — revels in a vast palette of sonic combinations and permutations. Along the way Johnson and his associates navigate an impressive range of material, from the funky odd-meter groove that suddenly emerges in “Skips” to a masterful plunger elegy for Jamie Branch (“The Long Branch”) and a synthesis of the structured freedom of the AACM with lush post-Romantic harmonies (“The Slow Reveal”). “My entire career has been built on playing music in the cracks between ‘modern jazz’ and more ‘improvised’ musics, says Johnson. “I do not draw a distinction between the two.””