CADENCE JAZZ WORLD

Album Review - Prosper by Justin Chart

Justin Chart's latest album PROSPER, is a beautiful connection of mood and melody, ranging from shivery melodious Jazz to hard-bop and swing.
 This is music of the night. The quintet plays beautifully and fills your ears with great grooves and hot riffs in this modern-day speakeasy.
I can imagine the martini’s being stirred, men shooting their cuffs, and ladies dressed to the nines. 
 There is a spine-tingling expectation in this scenario where the album Prosper is the soundtrack.
 All are in the moment, eloquently and elegantly as it evokes all the energy and attitude that the live shows are all about.
 "Love on Lexington" cuts through like a lighthouse of emotional integrity.
"Pale Gold and Faded Green" is a powerful, impressionistic tune, the tension lying between Chart's exotic patterns and the many angles that his saxophone phrases,
casting off sparks with "A Groove I Approve". There’s heart, nuanced tonality, and the interaction of an intuitive composition.
"Another Apple" is a combination of laid-back charm and pure burn.  They would not allow cameras in the speakeasy, hence no video, this music lets your imagination run wild.
Chart is a burning soloist, and seems alive to the possibilities of this freeing format, it is timeless, in that it can’t be pinned down to any era, it is evocative and mesmerizing combination of a place you may not know but where you’re always welcome.
Like a city at night, "Essence of Eminence" tells a long, lovely story with throaty spits and burly growls. Sauls comps and solos are clean and melodious, they set the stage for Chart to do what he does best.
This set is passionate and their music has the ability to make you feel, be it a slow haunting introverted ballad or a 320-bpm frenzied super swing.
 I love the way that the listeners attention is constantly being enthralled by various degrees of spiraling solos that coat every performance with a glistening form of storytelling, it kept me dialed in all the way through.
 
Prosper is a vehicle for Chart, with its hidden depths as it reveals something new and rewarding each time you play it, from Charts virtuosic cadenzas to Robbins spacious Bass solos.
Chart himself sounds voracious as he roars on "Use it Wisely" Lobato on Drums keeps it right and tight.
 Is this the reality of the fusion between soul and sound? Not to mention the courage required to even entertain such a format, and done so with a passion and soul wrenching honesty.
If you get a chance to see any of Justin Charts ensembles live, you will see how immersed they are in the moment, they have to be, in each case, drawn from masterful understatement.
 This album has me right there and makes me want to play it way too loud!
PROSPER is a phenomenal live album, outstandingly powerful, in the style of a 1960's Verve record, unique, imaginative, and sensuous with mesmerizing melodies, and powerful rhythmic interplay.
It is an adventure into a land where the dynamics and freedom of improvisation can meet the power and intensity of Hard Bop.