Old Main Chapel (Live)

Album review

The spacious intimacy of Ron Miles' trio is put on full display on 2024's Old Main Chapel. Recorded in 2011 at the titular 1876 building at the University of Colorado in Boulder, where Miles taught for many years, Old Main Chapel showcases the trumpeter's group with longtime associates guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Brian Blade. Miles, who died in 2022 at age 58 from a rare blood cancer, had a close creative partnership with Frisell, having recorded with the guitarist's quartet in the '90s and on his own albums like 1997's Woman's Day, 2002's Heaven, and, finally, 2020's Rainbow Sign. This live concert was captured just around the same time the trio entered the studio for 2012's Quiver and in many ways feels like a companion work to that album. Blessed with a warm, spare tone, Miles was a singular improviser, capable of crafting bold harmonic lines, yet he often played with a sweet lyricism that hewed lovingly to a song's melody. It was a style that Frisell was deeply in tune with and one that drummer Blade also mirrored from a rhythmic perspective in his own work. Together, they also shared a love of music from across a wide musical spectrum, drawing equally from acoustic modern jazz, country-folk, and popular standards of the 1920's. All of this is given the spotlight here as the trio gives a loose if still deeply focused performance. The album opens in dreamy fashion with "Mr. Kevin," a spritely number from Quiver that evokes the breezy West Coast jazz of the Chet Baker Quartet. From there, they settle into the rootsy warmth of Fred Smith and Libby Holman's 1928 song "There Ain't No Sweet Man That's Worth the Salt of My Tears." Yet more evocative moments follow, including the be-bop-esque "Rudy-Go-Round," which sounds like a Thelonious Monk tune and features some thrilling, bluesy group interplay, and "New Medium," which has the moody architecture of Miles Davis' small group work of the '50s. Similarly, "Guest of Honor" is named after a lost Scott Joplin opera and has the tumbling, urbane style of the composer's ragtime work. There's also "I Will Be Free," which has the closed-eyed focus of a gospel spiritual as Miles' trumpet moans with a crack-throated honesty. More than just a trio, Miles, Frisell, and Blade were musical kindred spirits, a vibe that emanates throughout Old Main Chapel.

© Matt Collar /TiVo