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Sometimes bands write their own reviews, and the Nightcrawlers have done just that with their third release: calling it Volume 3 is as good as saying, “Hey, here’s some more of what we’ve done before.”
Since it’s good stuff, though, we won’t complain.
In jazz scholar André White’s liner notes, drummer and bandleader Jesse Cahill explains that the Nightcrawlers began because he was playing “a lot of good but really difficult music” but really wanted to be making “music where I didn’t have to fear for my life”. Consequently, this is a chance for thrill-seekers Cahill, Dave Sikula, and Chris Gestrin to kick back with mainstream-oriented saxophonists Cory Weeds and Steve Kaldestad on some ’60s-style organ jazz, and it sounds like it. No one’s fearing for their life on this live recording from last October, but everyone’s having fun.Brother Jack McDuff’s “Snap Back Jack” and “Misconstrued” provide the template for the playful Sikula and Gestrin originals that make up the bulk of the set. It’s almost uncanny how the guitarist and his organ-playing colleague conjure up the mood of an inner-city Philly lounge, circa 1964—which suggests that maybe there is some kind of futuristic thing going on here, because time travel’s the only way to account for such funky authenticity. (by Alexander Varty)
