Every once in a while, a piece of music emerges that refuses to settle, one that is far more interested in blurring the edges of genres and traditions, building a whole new landscape from the elements that inform it. David White Jr.'s "The Novitiate" is one such piece of work, a charged, forward-looking cut that perfectly reflects the current state of modern fusion while also standing on its own two feet in terms of creative ideas and originality.
Featured on his most recent album, "While You Were Sleeping," "The Novitiate" is at once bold and welcoming, a search party where modern jazz meets Latin grooves, rock edges, folk samples, and the supersonic logic of bebop. What gives them coherence is White's electric guitar, which doesn't merely dominate the proceedings but animates an environment, a pulse, a restlessness of purpose.
The music has a warmth and an energy that makes it feel immediate in the moment, yet it also has a firecracker precision that speaks volumes about the caliber of the players involved. It features the incomparable John Lockwood on bass, whose sense of tone and texture keeps the piece grounded as it navigates bizarrely structured twists and turns. The fantastic drummer Mark Walker is at the song's rhythmic center, offering grooves that oscillate between Latin-tinged undercurrents and pulsating rock beats with impeccable fluidity. Together, the trio builds something as intricate as it is organic, like a conversation between old collaborators who know when to hold their tongue and when to take the upper hand.
"The Novitiate" is clearly White's track, a song that rewards close listening while demanding movement, nodding heads, and tapping feet.
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