Gambit

Gambit moves the feet and touches the heart with its gorgeous melodies and moody, spacious arrangements, ample evidence that Matt Darriau's Paradox Trio are still around and kicking out the Balkan jams first heard on their debut disc a full decade ago. Their old Knitting Factory releases may have all gone out of print by the time the 2000s rolled around, but thanks to the Munich-based Enja label you can still experience the granddaddies of the old downtown Balkan jazz scene during the new millennium, and the recorded evidence suggests that saxophonist/clarinetist Darriau and company are as strong as ever. Darriau (who also plays a mean gaida — a Balkan goatskin bagpipe) first cajoled Boston's Orange Then Blue big band into exploring Balkan musical forms back in the '80s. He (and others who spilled out of Boston music schools) brought the Balkan vibe south to N.Y.C. in the early '90s and was one of the very first to introduce an East-meets-West tone into the downtown jazz community. Darriau and the other members of his quartet (it's not really a trio) have been busy with many musical projects in addition to Paradox over the years (Darriau himself is probably best known as reedman for the Klezmatics), but they have found time to keep the Paradox flame burning, and music listeners are all the better for it.

On 2005's Gambit, Darriau, guitarist Brad Shepik, cellist Rufus Cappadocia, and Macedonian dumbek wonder Seido Salifoski are initially joined by Bulgarian kaval (an end-blown flute) virtuoso Theodosii Spassov, who demonstrates a deep rapport with the Paradox members. The Bulgarian is front and center in the mix and integrated so well into the band on the first four tracks recorded in Sophia during 2002 (Spassov's unison and counterpoint thematic statements and riffs with Darriau's fluid alto and Shepik's precisely articulated guitar on the rousing opener, "Theo's Gambit," set a high bar that is easily matched by his appearances on the next three tracks) that it's hard to imagine he wouldn't be missed on the pieces recorded without him in Hamilton, Ontario, during 2001. Yet the core quartet also acquits itself just fine, thank you, as "Faux 7" and "Free Gaida" — beautifully atmospheric and filled with Roma soul — lead into the 12-minute "Cocek i Gong," where a spirited uptempo motif sets the stage for extended fire-breathing guitar and alto solos over a killer vamp that draws not only from Balkan rhythms but also from modal jazz harmonic shifts and the punch of jazz-funk. Salifoski and Cappadocia are a rhythm section like no other — and who could imagine a cello (OK, an electric five-string cello) with such attitude, dipping so low into bass funk frequencies? Theodosii Spassov returns with a rich melismatic vocal over the band's spacious rubato backing on the closer, "Turdorka," his own composition recorded at a German festival in 2002; Spassov's reappearance brings the disc full circle while also adding a uniquely soulful flavor to the CD's conclusion.