Return to Casual

by Walter Smith III

Overview

Return to Casual is Texas tenorman Walter Smith III's Blue Note debut. He brings back the same band from 2014's Still Casual: pianist Taylor Eigsti, bassist Harish Raghavan, guitarist Matthew Stevens, and drummer Kendrick Scott (who also appeared on the saxophonist's 2007 debut, Casually Introducing). Trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire also returns on several cuts. This diverse ensemble delivers Smith's compositions with canny interplay, lyric and rhythmic invention, and gorgeous soloing. The opener and first single "Contra" is titled for a computer game Smith loved and played as a child. Its head is knotty and clever. Smith, Stevens, and Eigsti deliver the adventurous cascading melody in driving yet lyrical post-bop language. The bridge offers some of the most dramatic group interplay on the entire set. Akinmusire joins in on "River Styx." The swinging twin brass/reed head hardly prepares the listener for the manner in which Eigsti and Stevens open the harmonic gates for the frontline. During Smith's wandering, resonant solo, Akinmusire traces his lines skeletally, minimally, brokenly, then turns outward in delivering his own solo. "Shine" commences as a minor ballad with skeins of repeating lyric lines falling from piano, tenor, and guitar. They dovetail into one another before coming together on the lyric. Eigsti's solo ripples with sonant arpeggios, pulsing left-hand chords, and graceful swing. The winding saxophone and piano interplay is dramatic, almost cinematic in intensity. The only cover here is Kate Bush's "Mother Stands for Comfort," from Hounds of Love. The band takes the circular intro more slowly than the original. Smith's horn delivers the vamp with the piano, and though it's only a droning two-note pulse, he imbues it with emotion as Stevens mutes his fingerpicked strings. Scott's brushed tom-toms hover between atmosphere and restrained power as power as Raghavan stretches the time signature. "Quiet Song" is actually a soaring, euphoric, midtempo jam whose far-reaching braid of harmonics and rhythm recall the early Pat Metheny Group. "Amelia Earhart Ghosted Me" is a post-bop sprint framed in minimal changes by Raghavan and Eigsti. The horn players exchange striated harmonic lines, then rotate solos and go head to head on the melody in staggered cadences of breathless post-bop. James Francies guests on "K8+BYU$." The tune is a mashup of two originals, including the first song he ever composed. While Smith's saxophone floats the melody with Raghavan and Stevens, it's the solo interplay between Eigsti's piano and Francies' synth that offers timbral color and blissed-out harmonic assonance. Halfway through, the band slows it down and Smith re-enters in vamp-like call and response with Eigsti's ringing piano. Return to Casual is a delight. Smith's compositions are sumptuous, lush, sometimes songlike, and full of subtle yet profound timbral and color ideas that emerge at the most unexpected times. The bandmembers went from being colleagues on Still Casual nine years ago to being a group of players who trust, rely on, and encourage one another in a program of sublime music making. ~ Thom Jurek

Product Details

Release Date:	04/07/2023
Label:	Blue Note
UPC:	0602448866226
Rank:	7603

Tracks

1. Contra
2. River Styx
3. Pup-Pow
4. Shine
5. Mother Stands for Comfort
6. Quiet Song
7. Lamplight
8. Amelia Earhart Ghosted Me
9. K8 + ByU$
10. Revive

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Walter Smith III   Primary Artist,Sax (Tenor)
Harish Raghavan   Bass
Taylor Eigsti   Piano,Fender Rhodes
Kendrick Scott   Drums
Ambrose Akinmusire   Trumpet
Matthew Stevens   Guitar
James Francies   Fender Rhodes

Technical Credits

Chris Allen   Mixing,Recording,Mastering Engineer,Mixing,Engineer,Mastering
Walter Smith III   Composer,Producer
Kate Bush   Composer
George Clarke   Photography
Traci Fuller   A&R
Joe Nino-Hernes   Mastering Engineer
Rachel Jones   A&R
Steven Sacco   Assistant Engineer