Noise Pop Diary: SML cooked at SFJAZZ-all sauce, no Butterss - 48 hills

"Intense listening capabilities from these exquisite players which required, more than anything else, a great deal of trust. They posited about thematic structures, which somehow got agreed upon, live in the moment through a collective groupthink. Right there on stage. No words spoken, just an exchange of bizarrely intense looks. Ranging from 'we're almost there' to 'don't you dare.' That's trust, people."

"Everyone in that sold-out Joe Henderson Lab knew these off-the-cuff, makeshift jamming rituals were the things you paid for in real time. Following how they get from one stretch to another is the actual payout. There's nothing like what's happening in SML in the music world right now."

"Butterss always arrives, right on time, to lather on that slick, gravitational ooze. It's footing. When hands get sweaty, and backsides get tight, Butterss recalibrates the arrangement, returning everything to heartbeat tempo at square one."

SML is an experimental jazz ensemble comprising synthesist Jeremiah Chiu, saxophonist Josh Johnson, percussionist Booker Stardrum, and guitarist Gregory Uhlmann that eschews traditional live performance by avoiding pre-arranged songs. Instead, they engage in spontaneous collective improvisation guided by intense nonverbal communication and mutual trust. During a February 27 performance at SFJAZZ's Joe Henderson Lab, the band navigated thematic structures through exchanged glances and implicit understanding, performing for nearly an hour without spoken words. The group has never recorded in a studio and members maintain residencies in other ensembles. Notably absent from this performance was bassist Anna Butterss, whose gravitational bass presence typically grounds the band's arrangements and recalibrates their frequency balance.

Read at 48 hills