Drummer Johnathan Blake and His Quintet, Pentad

This week on Jazz Spectrum – August 12, 2023

By Fritz Byers

    The blog post immediately below, an appreciation of the pianist Larry Willis, expresses some of the reasons Larry is this week’s featured artist.  Each hour of the show this week showcases one or more of Larry’s gifts – as a band leader recording under his name (his recordings as a leader are featured throughout); as a composer (for example, he wrote all of the tunes in the first set); and as the chordal center of the rhythm sections behind great horns (the alto saxophonist Jackie McLean and the cornetist Nat Adderley in that same set, the trumpeter Lee Morgan on “Infinity” in the third set, and the all-star veteran ensemble, Heads of State, at the end of the third hour).

    But there’s more this week: we also present two tracks from the new release, out this week, from master drummer Johnathan Blake and his quintet, Pentad.  Jonathan dedicates the date, titled Passage, to his father, the jazz violinist John Blake, Jr., who worked most notably with the pianist McCoy Tuner.  The elder Blake passed in 2014.  

In Pentad, Johnathan collects some of the most dynamic musicians in the music: omnipresent altoist Immanuel Wilkins, the immaculate vibraphonist Joel Ross, the pianist David Virelles, and the stalwart bassist Dezron Douglas.  Each of them shines on his own, and, when organized around Johnathan’s impeccable rhythmic grooves, which are at once solid and floating, and always tuneful, the quintet emerges as a thrilling new force in the music.

The group’s 2021 release, Homeward Bound, was a highlight of the year.  Understandably, given its provenance, Passages is more nuanced, with a pull toward melancholy moods and slow meditative explorations of the tunes’ melodic and harmonic implications.  On the show this week, we’ll hear two of Johnathan’s compositions, “West Berkley St.,” and “Groundhog Day.”  They are characteristically intricate and, to my ears, suitable exemplars of a marvelous recording, a celebration not only of Johnathan’s departed father but of the wonders of jazz as a collective exploration of the complex relationship between through-composition and improvisation.